Black Canyon of Bear River 3_1_2012

I fished the river today and had it all to myself. The weather was cold at 25 degrees F with intermittent snow flurries. There was a 4-6 knot breeze from the South. I fished the same section of the river that I fished for my furled line review. On that day I was having difficulty getting the fish to take most anything that I offered; I think I was offering too large of a fly at #16. Today I could see that they were taking small BWO duns on the surface, so I presented a Barr's #18-20 olive Vis-a-Duns. This worked really well catching most of the fish. I also used a #18 BWO parachute and a #18 BWO parachute emerger with trailing shuck. They worked well also. None of the fish wanted anything subsurface; at least not anything I was offering them.

Because the dry flies were so small I had a harder time seeing them, therefore I put a 3/4 inch section of Rio Kahuna LT on the tippet and secured it where the loop-to-loop connection with the line was. This gave me something to see even though I could not always see the flies. If a fish rose near the Kahuna then I'd lift the rod. Most of the time I hooked the fish.

An average fish

I used the Kasugo-4209 with a 13.5 foot Stewart HiVis hand tied line. This worked a lot better with the breeze than the furled lines. The HiVis line was much less affected by the breeze and it didn't drag the fly like the furled lines did. I used a 4 foot 6x fluorocarbon tippet.

My box -- I don't carry much any more

I did hook one quite large fish today.  I would estimate that she was 15-16 inches, but she threw the fly about half way through the fight. What a disappointment. Most of the fish were 8-12 inches, with the larger fish giving a good fight.

Another in the net

One thing I learned today was that although Glacier Gloves keep my fingers warmer than fingerless fishing gloves, I could not hold any fish! The Glacier Gloves I have made the fish really slippery.

A little native cutthroat

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

Here is a video of today's highlights. I had the camera angled too low so the view is a little odd, sorry. Still, you can get the gist of the fishing. You may want to view it in YouTube.