Clouds, Drizzle, Olives… Action!

Finally, the clouds rolled in, a little tiny bit of precipitation fell on the Upper Sacramento River, and fly rods were uncased. It’s a welcome break from the steady sunshine we’ve enjoyed since June. Why?

Because it’s BWO weather, that’s why.

A #20 Quigley Cripple.. magnified (that’s 7x). It worked… sorta.

Yes Undergrounders, the happy day has finally arrived. The heavens moved, the stars ran their fiery courses to the proper places, the skies clouded over, the BWOs hatched and the fish fed.

Not heavily. Not with abandon. But they fed.

Flip Floppers

I was toying with the idea of running up to the Rogue and chasing the Flav hatch with Dave Roberts. We flopped our plans once he remembered the bait fishing season opened today on the Upper Rogue (and his local fly shop alone had 21 boats on the water).

Instead, he motored down here, and we ran downriver looking for big, stupid fish.

There Were No Big, Stupid Fish

We arrived about 12:30 (anticipating a 1:30/2:00 hatch) and found some fish already working. Damn.

Getting in the water delivered another shock. The bugs were dark olive with dark dun wings… and #22 in size.

The BWOs on the Upper Sac are typically #18-#20 in size, but two years ago the game played out the same way; the smaller flies hatched earlier in the fall while the larger #18 (even - I swear - some #16s) came later in the fall and winter.

It’s the opposite of everything I’d read, but I have a feeling we’re going to be reminded not to believe everything we read.

The water is very low and very clear, so the fish were cautious. Annoyingly so. Wading was an excruciatingly slow process, and presentations became - with a few exceptions - something of a distance game.

Long Distance Relationships

At one point, I snuck up the bank and very quietly entered a long run, edged to within 35′ of three risers, false cast once at what I thought was a safe distance behind them, and… they stopped. Oy.

In the end, both Roberts and I were fishing at distances not very conducive to small flies or hooksets.

I registered eight hookups with four landed. Dave managed to hook nine, but every single one of them came off the hook. Not his day.

One of four in the 11″-13″ range. The bigger fish eluded us.

Size Matters

I’d have to rate the hatch as an “average” for intensity, but the number of risers were below average. Dave theorized that the fish just weren’t quite on the hatch yet, and because it offered shelter for my damaged fly fisher’s ego, I believed him.

There were some nice fish working, but we hooked only two nice fish, and they both kicked butt and escaped with minimal effort.

In truth, I never really got the better of the hatch. With one exception, most of my fish were the garden-variety Upper Sac rainbows, and the better fish that stayed up long enough for a couple drifts cheekily refused my flies.

I threw a biot-bodied soft hackle at them (my only #22 pattern), a Quigley Cripple (that usually works, and did - but only on the regular fish), and a quill bodied parachute that looked way too light but fooled fish anyway.

Even the vaunted, can’t-miss Sully No-hackle only elicited a single take.

At least casting the distance wasn’t much of a problem; I was fishing my well-used 8′3″ 4wt hollowbuilt by Chris Raine - a rod delicate enough to protect a 7x tippet but strong enough to unroll a long leader at 50′-60′.

In other words, if there was a problem with the presentation, it wasn’t the rod’s fault, it was the idiot holding it by the fat end.

Still Crazy

The good news is the bad weather will continue for at least a couple more days. There’s the little matter of trying to make a living, but even as poverty looms, one does not blithely ignore good BWO weather.

According the forecast, it could go on through the weekend. Those of you with jobs shouldn’t even bother to run up here on Saturday. I’ll have caught ‘em all by then.

See you getting wet, Tom Chandler

[tags]BWO, blue winged olive, fly fishing, bamboo fly rod, Quigley cripple, trout, Upper Sac[/tags]