South Branch Report

[wildness]

Despite the threats of sever weather I decided to head the the claremont stretch last evening. Boy am I glad I did.

When I arrived at about 5:30 there was a fairly heavy tan #16 caddiss hatch taking place. Fish were concentrated in the riffles and eager to take a 16 EHC or emerger. Managed 6 nice wild fish and 1 stocker in the 45 minutes before the activity stopped.

The last few nights I'd been out the hendickson spinner fall hadn't been too spectacular, so I wasn't really in the mood to going back to slow, blind fishing while I awaited a mediocore spinner fall. I was allready satisfed with my fast paced earlier success and decided to reel in my line and make the walk back to my car. Of course, this meant stopping at the last trail leading to the river and taking one last look before I left. As I stepped out towards the river I was swarmed by the heaviest hendrickson fall I've seen this year. The fish had moved down form the riffles to the heads of the pools and were rythmically feeding. Trimmed my #14 hendrickson camparadun so it looked more like a spinner and was back into another 45 minutes of great dry fly fishing.

In the 2 1/2 hours I was out I managed about ten nice fish. The amazing thing is I missed at least twice that number. A more skilled fisherman could easily have had close to 30 fish in this time! Still, one of the better 2 1/2 hours I've spent on a river.