Back to Poor Man’s today. Feels great to be headed to running water again, but I’m just thinking about how I have my fly fishing pack filled with ice fishing gear back at the house. And my forceps are there too. Good lord I am relentless at forgetting stuff. I think I still have a few boxes of nymphs lying around the truck somewhere though.
If we let the Wind win every day, we wouldn’t do much fly fishing out here in the winter, and today Evan and I have had it. I’ll draw my wind to fly-fishing threshold at about 20 MPH. Anything over that is just ridiculous. But today we are just under, so we’re going fishing.
Evan gets there first and is having pretty good action on a black zebra midge. As I’m rigging up in the parking lot I am noticing the wind pushing the surface of the water around. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? It may be below my wind and fishing “threshold” but its still breezy enough where my upstream mends will sort of just flail back at me. I don’t really want to be doing this, but at least it’s warm today.
We are fishing the same run as I have a few times since starting this fishing journal. Lots of feisty trout are around, but I am only landing whitefish. On the zebra midge. There is not much bug activity that we can see, but most likely because of the wind – I’m sure with this warm weather we’ve been having at least some midges should be hatching. The adults are probably being blown off the water too fast for us to see. But the fish are definitely feeding. We both hook up within a few minutes of each other. First Evan – his fish pops off a few head shakes after the hook set. “Shit!” A few drifts later he is hollering again, rod bent over. Then I watch as his rod loses tension, and his flies fling past his head. Then more profanity. I’m always throwing salt on Evan’s river wounds, so I give him crap for losing another fish. What kind of fishing guide are you anyway?
Then I hook up. Immediately I am aware that this is no whitefish. I see the bright red band of the rainbow trout as it thrashes a few times on the surface. Nice fish too. But then it’s over. Evan gives it right back “ohh some guide you are…”
Dammit.
The wind is picking up now, and I’m pretty sure we have surpassed my wind threshold. But I haven’t landed a trout yet so I keep casting my way back to the car. Evan has thrown in the towel, and ends on a snag breaking his flies off. With one last chance for a fish I decide to change flies. I’m switching the black zebra midge for a small red copper john. Wham! I’ll end on this nice trout for the day. Gotta love the Yellowstone.
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