Willows

Big Hole River 4540 cfs, temp. 56. visibility 3 feet

It always seems to happen that when you have a great day and you figure the next day to be just as good, it never is. We had a fair day today and stayed with dry fly’s the entire time. We could have probably caught more fish using streamers and nymphs but there was just enough action on top to stay there. My client admitted he was a little rusty as he had not fished for quite some time and we donated several fly’s to the willows. The fish were also a lot more fussy. I tied on a skwala pattern with a caddis dropper as the cloud glare made it tough to see and for the first half of the trip they hit the skwala more than the caddis even though there were caddis all over the water—go figure that one out. The last hour the bigger browns started hitting the caddis and straightened out the hooks on a couple.

The forecast for tomorrow is 80% chance of rain which means it’s gonna dump on us. Cold and rainy conditions are in store for the weekend. That means it’s time to dig out the pumpkin buggers, JJ specials, yellow yummy’s etc. Also keep an eye out for the baetis as they do come out under those conditions.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.