RiverMusic Ranch: October Caddis season ~or~ Summer is 3 months old

For The Record ---

This afternoon was the first time I have been fishing since coming off Nugget and breaking ribs, puncturing a lung. It was a perfect early autumn fly fishing afternoon. Air temperature this afternoon around 4:00 was 84° and the water temperature was 52° - burrr - that was chilly upon stepping in up to my knees. Got used to the temperatures fairly quickly.

The last couple of days I have seen alot of October Caddis around the ranch and while driving up the river. I felt it was time to jump into the river and try out my back and fly fishing skills once again.

I found quite a few October Caddis flying over the river, but found no surface/ fish activity, so I started the p.m. fishing with a Copper John. I also found that the river bottom has reformed with alot of river rocks filling in the holes I have fished in the past. It wasn't too long that I found some pocket water and proceeded to hook a nice pan size redband rainbow.

This fish gave me a pretty good fight on the 1wt. as we fought up to the C&R. After letting this guy go back to swimming the river I worked my fly over a few more production hole that gave me no results. Then I came up to the big cross vain rock weir that we (CTUIR & BPA) put in the river a couple of years ago and begin catching fish right off the bat. As I cast my fly from right to left, below the boulders across the waterway I got pounded by a flying Hail Mary redband salmonoid football. This fish had to of been 13" maybe 14" or more. The fish hit my fly and ran to my side of the pool, I set the hook, it then ran back to the center of the pool, made a high flying leap through the air and shot downstream. As I turned the fish at the bottom of the pool and pointed it upriver, the hook with its micro-barb made a short rodeo as it went flying through the air. A nice quick fight with a weighty fish making a long line release, that was exciting. I plan to go back and look for him again soon.

From this point I move probably 1500' up river through McKuster Ranch waters looking for another nice pool to work. It has been two years since I cover this stretch of the river, and I now find that many of the pools I used to work through have filled with river rock. I finally got to a stretch of water that used to be a very fishy pool, now it is a 2' deep trough along the south bank, but held a number of nice trout.
After fishing this portion of the river I turned and began fishing downstream and caught about six more nice fish (8"-9"ers) in a bottom of the bluff trough, half way back to the house. So all in all by the time I was heading home having fished for about 3 hours I had caught maybe two dozen nice trout for the afternoon's effort. I was quite amazed at the river bottom's reconfiguration through the ranch's river way.
All fish today were caught on a Copper John and I witnessed no fish/October Caddis - dry fly surface action.

Today was Summer's three month birthday, gee is she getting larger/taller. Between my school bus runs I was able to get out to pasture and give her a good petting and lots of hugs, along with Goldie, Misty, Rosey, Kootenie, Raji, and Sunny. Not too much to say that a few picture can't tell about her and life around the ranch...

Summer 2009

1-week old