On The Caddis Trail, Part 2
From the moment the trooper made the u-turn at Cotopaxi as we drove innocently by, it was obvious we weren’t going to get to launch on time. Fortunately Caveman had his charm offensive switched on, and turned a possible citation into a booking for a float trip. By the time we hit the water, it was after 11.00am, the day was perfect, and the anticipation of getting into some caddis action made up for the late start. From a catching point of view, the day turned out to be not as productive as we would have hoped, but boy, did we catch some nice fish.
One of the things I love about fishing this time of the year is the sheer unpredictability of it all. After run off, you can pretty much set you watch by each day, tie on a big dry fly, get out there and catch a bunch of fish. This time of the year, predictability goes out the window, and you can get reminded that despite having read all the books, and spouted all the theories, ultimately in fishing we are dealing with rhythms and cycles of nature we barely glimpse and seldom comprehend [ which is how it should be ]. That said, I don’t want to sound like I am singing the blues too much. We obviously had a great day. The weather was gorgeous, the company fine, and we did catch some really nice fish. There were a lot of really nice drifts that got snubbed however, and we never settled into any confidence that we knew what was going on. It also goes to show that catching fish takes effort - there’s usually a lot of casts made to catch one fish.
Right now it seems that the river is in a bit of a holding pattern. The caddis are tucked up inside their cases, waiting for water temperatures to reach a consistent 52 - 54 degrees, which is their trigger to hatch. This cooling of the weather over the last couple of days has slowed this down. There are a few early-bird caddis flying around, and still lots of blue wings waiting to hatch, conversely waiting for weather that is a little cooler than we have at the moment. The river level has come up a little, no doubt caused by some low level snow melt, and this too has served to slow the hatch down some by cooling the water temperature, but I would expect things to be warming up, both literally and figuratively, by the end of the week.
Right now, if I were going fishing and the aim of the exercise was to catch as many fish as possible, I’d probably start with a nymph rig composed of a golden stone fly nymph as a lead fly. Behind that, I’d trail either a caddis pattern, or a mayfly pattern like a micro olive or WD40. As the day warmed up I’d try a dry / dropper rig like a stimulator trailing whatever nymph was working best from the first part of the day, and switch to a double dry rig, like a caddis and an adams, when you start to see feeders. Don’t be afraid to think outside the bun if the usual flies aren’t working. Sometimes, throwing something big a gaudy can be the ticket when all else fails.
We probably have about three weeks to make the most of these conditions before run off hits in earnest, so get out there and enjoy.
Monday, April 27, 2009