Wow. 

Fished after work at a very local freestone one evening this week. Hooked eleven and landed seven. Three of the browns were about 12″ or so. Video of one of them up top.

I’ve fished this water before, and it’s been mediocre to pretty good. This time, it was awesome. I think it was all about the bugs.

You see, as the sun was drifting lower and lower toward the horizon, a good-sized evening hatch started. I’m not much of a bug guy and assumed they were mayflies. But, casting a Hendrickson wet didn’t do much. Then, I ran into a local who knows well this river. He said that there aren’t a lot of mayflies and that it’s mostly caddis.

So, I put on a soft hackle Frenchie with some chartreuse ice dub on it, and wouldn’t you know it. Fish after fish after fish. Trust me: this doesn’t happen often to me.

I used a stomach pump (more here) on two of the larger fish. Their bellies were full and distended with caddis pupae that had a hint of chartreuse. My lucky guess.

Also, in one fish, there were some very small golden eggs, which I took to be sucker eggs. It’s spawning season for sucker fish and you can see them in the shallows.

I also had a midge larva trailer behind the soft hackle. Zero strikes on it. And, when I switched that for a chartreuse Copper John, no fish took the soft hackle. Then, when I put back on the midge larva, they again began hitting the Frenchie. Weird, huh?

So, I can’t figure out trout. Who would’ve thought that a midge larva would be an attractor fly?

A magical evening….