BWOs

It's rare to get a true hatch on the White River.  Yeah, we get sporadic iso's in season.  We get some sporadic early season hatches - Hendricksons, in particular.  There are stoneflies in the river, and you can find their casings at times, but I never see them in large numbers.

Last night, I picked a spot I had never fished before - right where the Second Branch empties into the main branch.  I knew there was some deep water there, and with flows very low right now (212 cfs in Hartford VT, vs. a median of 265 and a mean of 427 for the date), I needed some deep water.

I pre-rigged my rod with my White River standard fall duo of a Prince Nymph (I use many flavors of Princes, but went for the basic variety with a bead last night) trailed by a small juju baetis.  I was surprised to see fish rising in the water sporadically just after I arrived.  There were no bugs in the air, so I didn't know what they were taking, but I kept my eyes open.

I started fishing with a strike indicator.  My first time down through the stretch, I got nothing at all.  Not one strike.

So, with fish still rising, I decided to try a small caddis fly with a juju baetis dropper.  I had one fish come up and bat the dry, but nothing else.  Again, I fished the entire length of this run - fifty yards or so.

After no luck on the dry/dropper, I switched to a Montana Prince nymph and a juju baetis.  This time, I omitted the strike detector.  Almost immediately, I had a fish on the bigger nymph, and I lost him right at the net.  I think this fish was a stocked fish based on its color (or lack of color) and its size.

A few casts later, I got another fish, this time on the juju baetis.  This was a smaller wild fish.  And, as I continued downstream, nothing else happened.

By now, it was getting close to dark, and I could see BWOs in the air all around me.  The fish weren't taking flies off the surface, so I assumed they were taking BWO emergers, but they were enthusiastically coming to the top.  At one point, I counted 8 different fish working the surface.

So, I decided to go back to a dry.  I wanted a fly I could see easily in the fading light, and something small, because the BWOs were small.  I had some size 18 and 20 BWO dries, but I knew I'd never see them in the water.

So, I opted for a Klinkhammer in size 18, with a fluorescent orange post for high visibility.  Regretfully, between the current and fading light, I could barely see this fly, but the fish could sure see it.  Regretfully, I was playing a guessing game, striking any time a fish rose close to where I thought my fly might be.  I had at least half a dozen strikes, and felt the resistance of a fish on half of them, but I couldn't seem to hook them.  Finally, about 35 minutes after sunset, I gave up.

We had record high temperatures yesterday, which I'm sure had something to do with the hatch that occurred.  We just don't get many hatches like that on the White, and it was fun to fish dries on the main river.  I use dries in the White River tributaries, but rarely on the main river.  I can probably count the fish I've taken on dries in the main river on one hand, and I've been fishing the White for close to 20 years.

But, given the water conditions right now, it was a fun night on the river, and the fishing was better than I'd expected.  It would have been nice to get a few more fish to the net though.