Dry Fly Innovations

It’s all about the emerger on the South Fork right now.  The midge hatches are becoming dense and the BWO’s are just starting to hatch in larger numbers.  In most stretches of river you are not finding surface feeding rainbows, but there are those stretches that are alive with fish

I arrived at the river around noon.  It was 40 degrees with a slight wind, absolutely perfect fishing conditions.  I arrived at a big slick above Cow Creek and there were numerous big rainbows at the surface feeding on midges.  The tie on fly was a #22 Goose Biot Emerger with a black shuck.  There were a pod of rainbows feeding on the leading edge up river so I snuck in above them to casting range and waited.  A large fish rose in the lead and I cast to him.  No take.  I waited, he rose again and I served the fly.  Second cast of the day…..bang and the battle was on.  A couple of jumps, a few long runs and a gorgeous18 inch rainbow in the net.

The fish I landed had put the six or eight fish he was feeding with down, so I waited.  In a few minutes they began to surface again at mid river.  After selecting my target fish in the lead the cast was made about two feet in front directly in his feeding zone.  Bingo… fish on, fought and landed.

So it went on a spectacular day on the South Fork.  The fish continued to move away from me down river.  I’d move down and hook the fish on the leading edge to keep my line off them.  Later on they refused the dead drift, so I’d select a leading edge of feeding fish and swing the emerger across in front of them.  That method hooked a pretty nice group of fish.  Later still the fish refused the Goose Biot so switched to our BWO Emerger #20, and that change landed another group of fish.  I fished the run until the fish totally quit feeding about 4:00 pm, and then moved down river.

I never tied an adult midge or BWO on all day.  It was all about the emerger.  Here are the patterns.