discomidge
Well-known member
Of the streams I regularly fish, BFC has the prettiest fish, hands down, and I caught a bunch of lookers today.
Hit the narrows around 2 pm. The air was in the low 70s, the sky partly cloudy though showers and a small storm would roll through later in the day, and there was very little wind. I didn’t temp the water but it felt “normal” for BFC, so probably low/mid 50’s. The water was real high and that eerie, almost glacial, green that happens on BFC in high flows with maybe 24” of visibility. Perfect.
Besides the gnats or whatever blanketing the stream I didn’t see many bugs when I got there. A few caddis were around, both light and dark, and a stonefly, but it was quiet so I nymphed. I picked up 2 small browns on my first 4 drifts on a #14 iron lotus and a #16 rainbow warrior which got me all fired up, but after that I had to work for fish. I bounced around a bit, saw 2 or 3 March browns and tied on a #12 mb spider and the fish liked that okay. By about 5pm I had caught 7 or 8 fish nymphing (mostly on the mb), which by my standards was already a pretty good day on BFC.
But I was tired of nymphing so I went to a nice dry fly spot and drank beer and waited for rises. And, after a beer, things started happening. Sulphurs started sporadically coming off and there was a rise here and there. I sniped a few with a sulphur emerger then saw a real nice rise so I set up on that fish. That freaking fish and I danced for a far too long. Me changing flies, it coming up to inspect them and deem them wanting. Finally I tied on this #14 Wally wing biot body sulphur with a cdc thorax and the fish ate it on the first drift. It did not however get hooked, and never came up again.
Fortunately lots of other fish were rising by then even though the hatch was pretty light. I gotta stop obsessing over a single fish (in my defense it was a nice one). Anyway, that same sulphur pattern was automatic until about 9pm when I split. Lots of eats on the first drift, lots of nice fish but no real monsters. I was really psyched because that sulphur pattern was something I was messing with in February and it’s nice when a new diy fly gets good reviews on its first outing. I explained that to my wife when I got home and she wasn’t really impressed.
So, awesome day, I love May, and sulphurs.
Hit the narrows around 2 pm. The air was in the low 70s, the sky partly cloudy though showers and a small storm would roll through later in the day, and there was very little wind. I didn’t temp the water but it felt “normal” for BFC, so probably low/mid 50’s. The water was real high and that eerie, almost glacial, green that happens on BFC in high flows with maybe 24” of visibility. Perfect.
Besides the gnats or whatever blanketing the stream I didn’t see many bugs when I got there. A few caddis were around, both light and dark, and a stonefly, but it was quiet so I nymphed. I picked up 2 small browns on my first 4 drifts on a #14 iron lotus and a #16 rainbow warrior which got me all fired up, but after that I had to work for fish. I bounced around a bit, saw 2 or 3 March browns and tied on a #12 mb spider and the fish liked that okay. By about 5pm I had caught 7 or 8 fish nymphing (mostly on the mb), which by my standards was already a pretty good day on BFC.
But I was tired of nymphing so I went to a nice dry fly spot and drank beer and waited for rises. And, after a beer, things started happening. Sulphurs started sporadically coming off and there was a rise here and there. I sniped a few with a sulphur emerger then saw a real nice rise so I set up on that fish. That freaking fish and I danced for a far too long. Me changing flies, it coming up to inspect them and deem them wanting. Finally I tied on this #14 Wally wing biot body sulphur with a cdc thorax and the fish ate it on the first drift. It did not however get hooked, and never came up again.
Fortunately lots of other fish were rising by then even though the hatch was pretty light. I gotta stop obsessing over a single fish (in my defense it was a nice one). Anyway, that same sulphur pattern was automatic until about 9pm when I split. Lots of eats on the first drift, lots of nice fish but no real monsters. I was really psyched because that sulphur pattern was something I was messing with in February and it’s nice when a new diy fly gets good reviews on its first outing. I explained that to my wife when I got home and she wasn’t really impressed.
So, awesome day, I love May, and sulphurs.
