Now is the Time! Part 2

Went back to the same stream as last Friday, and fished the center section, which I often find to be the least productive part of the stream. But there were plenty of fish around yesterday. Another good day, though not "magical" the way last week's adventure was.

Fish were rising fairly actively, but it was hard as hell to figure out what they wanted. My guess is they were mostly taking midges which were abundant on the water. I saw a few early black stoneflies (what were definitively hatching last week), but the fish weren't particularly interested in them yesterday. I tried a few different patterns including a blue quill, and adams, until finally settling on a small tan caddis. This wasn't exactly right either, but the rate of takes to refusals seemed better for that than anything else I tried.

It really was kind of amusing... The fish were very willing to rise, but not take. I had one cast when three fish bounced up to my fly. I probably had 15 fish refuse my blue quill, though it did take the fish of the day (a 12" bow) at the slightly turbulent edge of a large pocket. My guess is he didn't see it very well, and was concerned it would get away, because he slammed it after coming across from quite a distance. Despite this one success, I couldn't keep the pattern on because so many fish would bounce up without taking (that's a "refusal").

Once I settled on the caddis things calmed down a bit...perhaps only half the rises were refusals.

Altogether I guess I caught 25 fish in 3 hours... though I probably raised 75 during the day. Only one, the quill-taken bow, was 12", many were much smaller. One brown trout taken late in the afternoon on the caddis: all the rest were 'bows.