First Solid Hatch of 2011

Well it finally happened.  Yesterday the Baetis showed up in large enough numbers to get fish looking up for a couple of hours.  I was fishing a new piece of water on one of my favorite rivers when I started to see a few heads tilting up.  At this point in the year, after nymphing for nearly 6 months it only takes a few rises for me to take off the indicator, weight, and heavy flies and rig up a dry.  I landed a couple of fish as the winter storm that was predicted seemed to be rolling in and I was getting rained on a bit. 

I had fished through a beautiful piece of water a little earlier in the day and had made a mental note to hightail it back there if fish started rising as it looked like it a great spot for fish to be taking Baetis duns.  Sure enough I headed back downstream and standing on the elevated bank watched several fish rise.  I carefully waded into the water and started fishing to individual, rising fish.  For the next couple of hours I was able to experience a textbook Spring Baetis hatch.  I only moved perhaps 20 yards during the entire hatch and landed 30 fish or more ranging from 12-18".  As is normally the case on this particular river the Rainbows outnumbered the Browns by 6 to 1 or so.   Of course I missed my share and broke off a few quality fish on the hookset.  I probably could have landed another 20 fish if I wasn't spending so much time changing flies.  I had perhaps 8 BWO parachute flies that have been in my box for a while that I wanted to fish first as I'm trying to rotate out all the flies that aren't my own ties.  The flies worked great but unfortunately weren't durable.  Each fly would catch 2 or 3 fish before being destroyed.

There really are few sights as beautiful as a quality trout gently tipping it's head back and taking a dry.  For two hours the river came alive and virtually every dun on the water got eaten and at times every cast rose a fish. 

Of course by the time I got back within 10 miles of Bozeman I was driving through a violent Spring storm with sleet coming down so thick it was hard to see.  This morning we awoke to a fresh 3 inches of snow.  Oh well, today will be spent tying more durable Baetis patterns for next time. 

18" Rainbow

Another quality Rainbow 17.5"