The last two days we have actually done some sight fishing! The river has close to six feet of visibility and the fish are falling back into there old routines. Midges and baetis are fooling more fish than eggs, worms and larva. I took some folks wade fishing. We fished a dry dropper all day catching many fish on a grasshopper with a cream midge below it. Fish ate the hopper in sand hole and along the bank to upper flats. We also hit fish in the bushes wherever there was a small clearing, very cool fishing.
Float fishing is still the most productive way to fish the river. I am using red or orange larve to a midge before lunch and then switching the midge to a chocolate RS2 in the afternoon. Most fish will not take the colored larve but it is a good attractor. The trout are still finding big meals, one fish had a night-crawler in his mouth. Another fat female regurgitated small frog eggs all over the boat but catching fish on imitations of these is getting difficult. They have seen too many egg and worm imitations lately, now that the river is clearing up they are getting wise to us. Insect imitations look more like the real thing and fish take them more readily. Only another week of 5000cfs, I’ll let you know how it fishes on the way back down.
Some of you may want to know that the bait water is also fishing very well. I floated an 11 year old and his grandfather to the village yesterday. We caught countless small fish on an orange egg to a size 14 red larve. Great fun for any young fly fisher that may want to get out and catch a bunch of fish.