Third Branch of the White

I consider the White to be my "home" river.  I fish there at least 50% of the time that I fish.  But, I tend to fish the main branch despite living only 2 miles from the Third Branch.  Why?  Because I tend to find that the Third Branch sucks.  The other guy in my small town that fly fishes a lot says that he gets skunked at least every other trip to the Third Branch.  Recently, he's had some better luck, running into a yellow sulphur hatch and getting some fish, and he's even taken rainbows with mouse patterns.  But, he's a good fisherman and even he admits he struggles on the Third Branch.  A fisherman that I see once a year in Addison county for a fly fishing tournament tells me how lucky I am to live by that river.  I think he may have last fished it 20 years ago, when it had a reputation as a decent river.  These days, it's a struggle and a little more driving almost always yields some fish.  (Well, Saturday morning, I was skunked on the Winooski, so other rivers are not always better.)

Upstream from the town where I live, the state stocks brookies in the river.  From the middle of town down to Bethel, the state stocks browns.  I usually catch a few of those browns every year, but not too many.  I know that there are large wild fish in the river as well.  One of my son's co-workers took a brown close to 30" 2 summers ago.  A friend saw a fish at least 24" spawning in a tributary last fall.  A few years earlier, someone kept a stringer-full of 5 browns and they were all huge.  So, those fish are in there, but I find it to be a very tough river.  For the most part, to be honest, I just ignore it and drive a bit more to fish the main branch.

Yesterday afternoon, I was taking a nap on the couch, planning to fish, closer to sunset, about 20 miles downstream from where we live.  While I was taking a nap, the aforementioned local friend sent a text.  He had found a huge hatch of flying ants midday and was fishing on the Third Branch.  I saw this text a few hours later and assumed I'd missed it completely.  But, shortly after I saw the first text, he sent two more.  He told me where he'd been fishing and said to "just head down to the river and listen for the splashes".

Dry fly fishing opportunities like that don't come along very often, so I headed out quickly.  I found the spot, but had a few issues.  It was a steep descent to the river.  The land was posted against trespassing.  And, even down at the river, I didn't see any easy way to cross to where I needed to fish.  But, I could see fish rising, so I knew I had to fish.  This was right where a small stream entered the third branch.  So, I hopped in my car and drove to a spot where that smaller stream crossed a road, and waded/hiked about 20 minutes downstream.

As I arrived at the spot, things were very quiet.  The flying ant hatch appeared to be over.  I approached the water very stealthily, keeping a low profile, even though the sun was already behind the distant peaks.  As I knelt down to tie on an ant pattern, a fish broke the surface.  Then another.  And another.  By the time I was ready to cast, there were 8-10 fish working the surface.

I tried a few casts (I had tied on an ant pattern hoping to match the flying ant hatch that was winding down) into the lower, slower pool, which is where the fish seemed bigger.  But, they were also wary and I couldn't tempt them to the surface.  Even with a long, fine leader, each cast seemed to put the fish down for a bit.  So, I worked on the lower end of a riffle where some smaller fish were working the surface pretty loudly.  After 10-12 casts and no strikes, I wasn't sure what was up.  I couldn't see my fly in the water, so it was hard to know if it was floating or even in the right lane for the fish.

I reeled in to change flies, and discovered I couldn't see my ant because it wasn't there.  It had snapped off, probably on my first cast or two, and due to a bad knot.  I was really torn on what fly to use.  Finally, I opted for a size 16 Royal Wulff, primarily because it seemed the fish were eating small bugs and this one would be easy to see.

By the time I changed flies, I knew my fishing time was short.  It was already sunset or close to it, and I had a decent hike back to the car.  But, on my third cast to the riffle, a fish hit my fly hard.  It was a decent brown, although I couldn't be sure if it was a wild fish or a holdover from spring stocking:

I apologize for the poor pictures, but when I'm solo, I try to keep the net wet, land the fish, unhook it quickly, snap a quick photo, and get the fish back in the water.  This brownie was probably just short of 12".


It was only a few casts later that I had another take.  This time, the fish was clearly bigger, and it moved downstream to fight in the big, deep water.  At one point, it had taken out most of my fly line, and it was showing no signs of getting tired.  The fish was deep, my fly line was deep, and suddenly the water erupted on the other side of the stream as the fish streaked for the surface.  At that point, I was finally aware that it was a rainbow and not a brown.  After a good fight, I landed the feisty fat rainbow - one of the my better fish of the year.  I quickly got this fish unhooked and back into the water, but I got a decent photo:

At this point, the fish were all down.  The rainbow had seemingly notified every fish within 100 yards to be careful.  I sat on the bank, waiting for any fish to return to the surface.  The first fish to return were the bigger fish in the slower water.  However, they were still very wary and any cast in their direction put them down immediately.  Not long after that, the fish in the riffle started rising again.  This time, it only took one cast and I hooked another fish.  My first thought was that it was a rainbow, because it was tail dancing on the surface the second it felt the hook.  Instead, it turned out to be a brown - the smallest of the 3 fish I'd caught:

At this point in time, it was about 20 minutes past sunset.  I had a tough hike back to the car.  But, I didn't want to quit quite yet.  I waited 3-4 minutes to be sure no fish would return to the surface, but it remained very quiet.  So, I headed to the car.

All told, I probably drove 40 minutes.  I hiked another 40 minutes.  I fished maybe 25 minutes, and probably 5 of those minutes, I had no fly on my line.  Other times, I was simply in a waiting mode.  So, in 15 minutes of real fishing, I took 3 nice fish from a river that rarely gives me any fish at all.  I'd call it quite a successful little adventure.

In 5 days, my fly fishing vacation starts, not that I'm counting down the days...