I’ve spent my summer mostly in the super-heated low country. It’s been unpleasant but necessary.
By late July, even the mid-elevations were cooking. You might think 5,500 feet in the Northern Rockies was enough to get you a reprieve from triple digits, and I suppose it is, but just barely.
A break in my schedule allowed for most of a day to do something fun. I looked to the mountains and knew exactly where to go.
I’m visiting friends in semi-high places, so it was a relatively short drive to the high country. It was 89 degrees when I left, at about 9 a.m. When I got to my destination it was a little after 10, and my truck’s thermometer read 68.
Sixty-eight degrees never felt so nice. I enjoyed the “chill.”
It’s been a while since I’ve watched a dry fly bounce in the current but I found myself along a mountain stream with no discernible hatch underway, and a dearth of rising fish. I decided to stay with dry flies regardless, though I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d emptied out most of the trout stuff from my fishing vest during the spring carp season and hadn’t fully restocked it. I had just a handful of nymphs and only one indicator.
So for a day, the dry fly purist in me returned.
After a fried chicken breakfast — one drumstick left over from the night before — I grabbed my gear and headed for the water. I fished a lovely, willow-lined stretch of river where it meandered through a high-elevation meadow. It’s about 8,000 feet, but unlike a lot of streams this high, there are a good number of 14- to 16-inch cutthroats in the river. That’s one thing no-kill regs do for you: allow bigger fish to grow. If worm drowning was allowed in this catch-and-release, fly-and-lures-only water, you’d be hard-pressed to find trout this big.
The bait guys would cull out the best fish by the time they were 12 inches long.
I’m not anti-bait, by the way, but most wild trout streams need protection if you want to grow decent-sized fish. A mountain stream where you have a reasonable chance at a 15-inch fish doesn’t just happen. It takes a village filled with conservation-minded anglers.
I tied on an attractor pattern — a Purple Haze — to start the day because it seemed a good searching fly and the fish weren’t on top. That quickly earned me a couple dinks and then a better fish that worked itself free after what I thought was a solid hook set.
Moving upstream to the next pool, yet another dink slammed my fly. As I played the fish, a decent cuttie, maybe 12 inches, launched after the smaller fish with murderous intent. I let my line go slack and the smaller trout unhooked itself, avoiding its fate.
Such antics are common with bull and brown trout, but I’ve never seen a cutthroat pounce like that. I suppose at 8,000 feet you need to eat your calories when you can.
After its failed predatory adventure the trout returned to its spot along a mid-channel boulder. I cast a few dries in its direction, received one strong look, then moved on.
At the next pool I finally broke down and tied on a Prince Nymph and that indicator. I tossed it into the froth at the head of the pool, then watched as a big cutthroat chased my orange bobber back to where I stood, before finning back to the depths.
So I went back to dries with an oversized orange Stimulator and watched that same trout trail the fly right back to where I stood, only this time it got a good look at me and spooked.
I get that a lot.
Despite the insult, I’ll be back. It’s too hot to linger in the valleys.