‘Having had my logic soundly refuted, I had no shame in cutting off the dropper and continuing with just the dry. The fishing was steady rather than frantic but that is no criticism; mostly native brown trout but a larger rainbow and an unexpected brook trout’
Warm summer days in the Rocky Mountains are often interrupted by brief, but heavy, afternoon storms, when moist air is forced aloft by the terrain and temperature. With a predictable lack of imagination these rains – repeated for consecutive days and extending sometimes for weeks – are referred to locally as ‘Monsoon season’. Aside from any temporary inconvenience, the rain is always welcome in our semi-arid climate as an immediate mitigator of wildfire risk and a welcome supplement to stream flows which always decline to dangerously low levels by late summer.
This is to paint with a broad brush, and weather in the mountains is always localised. My local stretch of Tarryall Creek flows in a valley at 8,600 feet of altitude, surrounded by ridges and peaks of 12,000 to 14,000 feet. These higher elevations generate the storms and claim much of the rain; it is very common to be surrounded by dark clouds, thunder and lightning, but to only receive the gusting wind without the rain.
Such was the setting one day in early July. A dry and bright morning had started with a familiar walk back into the hills, wandering our own course and not following established trails. In the cool of the first light, coyotes were returning with fresh kill to feed the cubs, already strong and bold enough to venture short distances from the den to anticipate the food’s arrival. Elsewhere, in the narrow, watered draws, deer were retreating to the shelter of the thicker vegetation after travelling more widely under the cover of night. Last week we disturbed a bear drinking at the seasonal stream, only my third such encounter in nearly two decades.Regardless of season or location, the first couple of hours of daylight are always my favourite. Provided my approach is cautious and respectful, I am accepted by nature as a curiosity but not a threat.
After some hours of necessary but unexciting jobs involving irrigation ditches, fences and errant cattle, mid-afternoon offered some free time. A motorcycle ride was considered but there was no ignoring the darkening clouds to the north and west, and wet rides on temperamental old British machinery are never my preferred choice. With the river at near perfect levels, in the window of six to eight weeks between spring run-off and low, late summer flows, the opportunity to fish was an easy decision.
As is typical on our mountain streams, hatches were sparse and mixed. Never one to fixate on entomology or Latin, my identification settled on small and brown, with a #18 quill-bodied parachute offering a suitable match. Nothing was rising, save the occasional splash of hard-working six inchers in the faster riffles, but again this is typical. Starting at the bridge, a two hundred yard stretch of mixed water winds through two bends to the biggest of the beaver dams; this dam was damaged by the earlier spring run-off but is still an imposing obstacle. In late summer the beavers will doubtless repair and extend it, deepening the water before the winter freeze. This stretch of water fishes as reliably as any I know. It offers slower glides, deeper holes, bankside eddies, and a plunge pool and long riffle below the dam: something for all sizes of trout and river conditions.
I cover most of the water, knowing that trout often hold in unlikely spots, but if my fly is ignored after a couple of drifts I take a few steps upstream and repeat the procedure. Mountain trout are hungry creatures by nature. If they are going to strike it is usually at their first sight of the fly and repeatedly covering the same water rarely changes their mind.
I fished the stretch between bridge and dam in twenty minutes. None of that time was spent unhooking fish; nothing, not a bite. I disturbed some small fish in the shallows but nothing showed any interest in my carefully matched offering. At best, there was perhaps a splashy rise but in truth I had lost sight of the small fly in the faster water and so the fly and splash were probably just a coincidence.
This was a surprising result, though more a puzzle than disappointment. The obvious inference was that the fish were feeding sub-surface. I believe that they always do – they are not picky eaters. Even when visibly feeding on the surface they are also taking the nymphs, the surface rises just reflecting the insects that had survived that initial, lower assault. My preference for the dry fly over a nymph is a matter of aesthetics, not a choice calculated to maximise my catch.
Meanwhile, the weather was yet more threatening. Dark clouds now capped the nearest peaks, the wind had strengthened to make casting a challenge and the thunder was louder and at diminishing intervals behind the lightning. But similar threats often fail to translate into rain on Tarryall. Bypassing the slow water immediately above the dam, for the next stretch of mixed water a change of tactics seemed appropriate. A larger dry fly was attached, not chosen for its hatch-matching appeal, but instead for its more mundane quality of buoyancy to hold a nymph trailed on a dropper.
Within a handful of casts – I doubt I had taken a second step upstream – the first raindrops hit the water. There is nothing subtle about these storms – in that sense, ‘monsoon’ is not such a misnomer. The rain arrives suddenly and in volume. Within half a minute, the stream surface was a broken mess, the usual bird calls replaced with the solid drum of water-on-water. I fished on initially but the fly – the dry fly – was taking direct hits from the rain, bucking and sinking with no piscatorial input.
The dogs are not scared by storms but treat them with a degree of respect. They abandoned their usual bankside wandering and stayed close to me. I wound in and cached the flies on a rod ring, stood the rod up against a bush and sat on the bank. The dogs gathered round, probed my pockets for the treats they knew them to hold, then wrestled for their turn to sit on my lap. The rain was cool rather than cold and any lightning had rocks and trees as more likely targets than me. Huddled amidst the violence of the storm, there was a peace, a serenity, from being humbled by nature.
The interruption was brief; the rain abated as quickly as it arrived, the darkest clouds hurrying southwards. The familiar blackbirds and warblers re-emerged onto the tops of willows and shook themselves dry. Fishing resumed and bites came steadily. The first, a modest brown, took the dropper but three more followed in twenty minutes or so, all taking the dry fly. Needless to say, nothing was hatching that matched this bigger fly, though a face-saving explanation is that it was an approximation for the ever present grasshoppers. A more honest explanation is that there is no good explanation, it was just that delightful mystery of trout fishing.
Having had my logic soundly refuted, I had no shame in cutting off the dropper and continuing with just the dry. The fishing was steady rather than frantic but that is no criticism; mostly native brown trout but a larger rainbow and an unexpected brook trout, doubtless stocked by the fishing lodge further upstream.
Ninety minutes after the first cast at the bridge, the now ragged dry fly was clipped off, the line wound in and I walked back downstream to the bridge and cabin. The storm still rumbled some miles distant but here the sun had dipped below the remaining clouds and low, late afternoon light reflected off the wet vegetation and nearby rocks. Freed from the dense, stream-side vegetation, the dogs made full use of the open meadow to chase and torment each other, as usual. They had earned their imminent dinner; myself a beer…
Writing & Images – Paul Adams, Summer 2024
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