Great February Dry Fly Fishing

I was looking for some action on the fly rod last week and found some great fishing not too far from the car or from home. Anytime the temperatures rise above 32 degrees in February I can usually be found somewhere in my house turning cartwheels. Fishing trips lately have been few and far between. I escaped on a beautiful Saturday afternoon last week for a 1 hour trip to Black Canyon. The canyon stretch of the river upstream from the Grace power plant is a beautiful stretch of river with terraces separating deep pools. Each pool, run and riffle has its own character and the water can often be difficult to read and even harder to wade. The bottom of the river is lava rock from an ancient flow, the current has chiseled the large canyon and made some holes only as big around as your leg and deeper. On more than one occasion I have been walking along the downstream edge of a terrace shelf and with one misplaced step found myself up to the hip in a hole barely big enough for my boot to fit through. Take caution and it is always good if you don't know this stretch of river to take a buddy along. 

This trip didn't turn out to as much of a challenge as I thought that it might be. In fact since I have started keeping this blog last March, I have now caught a trout on a dry fly for 12 consecutive months. This is a feat that I am somewhat proud of even though if you know where to go on the Bear there is a good chance of fish rising in the middle of a blizzard. the fish don't seem to care much what is going on with the weather as long as there are midges coming off, and they come off in droves. Midge activity in the soft water where the fish don't have to expend much energy to get a mouthful of the little black bugs really get the fish going, and if you don't find midged coming off on top of the water there is a good chance there are active larvae and pupa working their way to the surface in the winter months. 

When I see mouths and tails I throw an 18 or 20 griffiths gnat or a parachute adams in the same sizes. When I see backs and dorsal fins I throw a small brassie or black midge emerger. If neither of the above are happening I chuck a standard nymph or a small midge larvae pattern or San Juan worm with success. Streamers will always work and as the famous Gary LaFontaine once said, "you know what they say about wooly buggers, they work" and the Bear River is no exception. A streamer fished very slowly may be what you really want to fish when you just want to catch fish, but fish them slowly, dead drifts work as well as slow upstream strips. 

Whatever seems to be going on around this area, Black Canyon is always the one place I can go to forget that it is winter. The scenery, wildlife and the river is beautiful and the fishing isn't bad either.