Saturday was hot, clear and perfect!
Scott Sawtelle, Kathleen Curry and I floated the Bighorn River fishing a black caddis hatch that lasted ALL day long! The fish were really on these bugs! Big browns and 'bows were scarfing the sooty colored caddis at all the normal spots like subtle current seams and foam lines, but they were also filtering into very shallow slicks and light runs to pick off the caddis. When you could fool one of these shallow water feeders, some dramatic moments followed the hook set when all hell broke loose.
Before the dry fly fishing began in the mid-morning, Scott was kind enough to catch a 20" bow on a chocolate PMD nymph (dropped below a pink sow bug) that I had tied 20 years ago. I've had that fly in my PMD nymph box seemingly forever and with a few PMD's coming off (and no fish on them) it seemed like a good idea to let Scott give the nymph a try! Things change, but I guess not always that much!
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A 20" rainbow with a 20 year old fly in its mouth!
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After the black caddis started coming off, we never went back to nymphing the rest of the day. CDC black caddis and black elk hair caddis did the trick. The Bighorn is a wonderful river... sort of an amusement park for fly fishermen!
