June, 1999
6/2: God my timing is awful. Instead of trying to get in a few casts before lunch I waited until 2:00. Naturally within five minutes of hitting the pond a voracious wind storm began sucking all the air in the valley up into a massive thundercloud. Despite that difficulty, the rig of a small scud trailed by a bead head caddis emerger landed three brookies and hooked, but lost, three others in about fifteen minutes.
To review the limited action in the prior week take a look at May's report.
6/4-5: It's the same every year during runoff. Actually the fishing's not great fun, but when you need the fix, what else can you do. We cast on Gore Creek last night and again today, plus fished a couple of stretches. Landed a couple of rainbows and browns and as usual this time of year, missed tons of strikes. The fish seem simply protective of their feeding zones along the river's edges as opposed to really taking our wooly bugger offerings as though they were food.
6/6-7: Same old, same old. Every eddy that should have held a fish did, but lots of strikes didn't lead to lots of landings. Hooked a couple of very nice fish, but everything broke off this afternoon. The best fly seems to be a gold cone headed wooly bugger tied with dark brown marabou, a little extra flashabou, and a black hackle. It's not great fun although anything's better than not fishing.
6/8: LIFE GOT A LITTLE BIT BETTER on the Eagle today below Wolcott. Although it was the same fly with the same tactics, the results were better. In an hour of working eddies, I landed a half dozen modest rainbows, but lost or got tickled by another 10-12, some of which were large. The best thing about this hour of fishing was landing - and very gently releasing - a couple of fish in the 7-8 inch range - obviously yearlings. So at least we're getting some modest local rainbow spawning.
6/11-14: Nothing changes much during runoff. A couple of trips to either Gore Creek or the Eagle in this period of high - but clearing - water produced the same kind of results. Dark wooly buggers regularly produce strikes, but limited numbers of hookups.
We did take a longer trip to a couple of other areas over the weekend and the success rate again was predictable. The upper ARKANSAS above Buena Vista produced several strikes and a couple of browns. Weather was uniformly lousy. We looked at ANTERO RESERVOIR, but rain & too much wind discouraged any attempts at casting from the shore. The UPPER S. PLATTE around Hartsel was fun for the short time we cast. It produced several smallish, but actively fighting, browns on either a brown wooly bugger or the bead head caddis emerger on a dropper above it.
6/18-27: Took a week long trip to parts of MONTANA, IDAHO, & WYOMING. CLICK HERE for the report.
Last Logbook Entry � for previous days.
6/29: Runoff has peaked on the Eagle, but wading remains difficult and dangerous. The stream is best fished by drift boat or raft. An hour of casting by the bank today yielded up a couple browns and rainbows to weighted stones. Tried a throwing attractor flies for a bit but that was totally unsuccessful. Winds are ferocious and the only bugs I saw in the air were a few small caddis flashing by me and hanging on for dear life.
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