Fish rise, showing nose then head. Then dorsal fin. Finally tail. Six or seven of them steadily feed. They seem to all be over 15″ with a couple of them around 19″ or better. I don’t know if I can stress enough how much I enjoy casting to rising trout—for me, the pinnacle of fishing. It’s taken a few hours to find these risers.

We arrived on the South Fork Boise a few hours ago, after our annual stop at Wal-Mart in Mountain Home so Dan could pick up his license. (We were pleasantly surprised that Judie was there to sell the license for the third year in a row.) We hurried to the river and made it here about 11:00. We hoped with it being a Thursday that plenty of our favorite spots would be open, but they were all taken.

We passed Dan’s Deli, Popcorn Hole and then made it to Indian Rock, the first available location. We pulled in. Indian Rock is a large rock formation that the river runs smack into, sending the water at a 90 degree angle to the right. A deep eddy forms there and small silvery trout often rise in the pool.

We hopped out of the truck and into a stiff breeze and cold temps. We hoped for a BWO hatch with the cloud cover, but the wind was just too strong. There were, however, quite a few midge hovering and swirling with the eddy. Dan saw a rise and eventually hooked, then lost a little fish.

I was fishing a deep stretch down below Dan, more out of something to do to keep me moving than anything else. I had a nymph on trying to hook into something from the depths. There was a little orange  bobber strike indicator along the bank that I attached to my line. I moved into the big eddy after Dan lost the fish. I tossed the line a dozen times or so when the bobber strike indicator came off. It was caught in the vortex and slowly made a few revolutions around the pool. I snipped off the nymph and reeled in. Dan was back at the truck and hollered out, “Hey, a fish took the indicator!” I looked up and couldn’t see it. I watched the water and about 30 seconds later it bobbed to struck for the surface.

We packed up and headed downriver hoping Icebox would be free. But a white truck was parked just above it. Icebox is where a side channel forms during high flows that Dan likes to fish. We didn’t see anybody downriver of the truck, so we stopped, walked to the now empty channel and followed it a hundred yards up to the main river. Looking downriver, then back upriver toward the white truck, we didn’t see anyone else. We stood at the tailout on the outer edge of a nice bend in the river. We made our way to the far side so we could fish the deeper channel of the outer bank.

And here we stand, watching fish porpoise. We wade toward the middle of the river until we are a bit more than waist deep, leaving us to cast about 25 feet. That seems a pretty manageable distance, but ’s as difficult as casting across three time zones: the fish are mostly rising in the slack water on the far shore or in the seam of the slack water and fast current. We stand in the medium speed water. Our float line lands with 5-10 feet in the slack water, 10 feet in the fast water and about 8 feet in the medium. Each cast has a 2-4 second drift before the fat water rips the fly through the slack water leaving a wake in its path.

As I said, there is nothing better than fishing to risers. And it can be frustrating. These fish are not rising to a particular count: a fish rises, then rises again one second later, then doesn’t rise for a minute then rises 30 seconds later then again two minutes later. Any poorly cast line seems to put the fish down, but only for a couple of minutes, then they are on the feed again. Combine the inconsistent rises, the variable water flows, the rise and fall of the wind and the unknown fly they were feeding on and this is our frustration.

However, I would rather have a day with these conditions than no risers at all. I like mystery books, puzzles and chess. These all have corollaries in fly fishing. It’s the cerebral challenges that captivate me most about fly fishing. I’m sure if I were a kid today, I would be diagnosed with ADHD, with emphasis on the H (hyperactive). Luckily that has mellowed quite a bit with time, but I still can’t sit still for more than a couple of minutes without doing something. So fly fishing gives me the physical outlet I need with my desire to keep moving. These mental and physical challenges are in high gear today.

We’ve seen midges off and on, and the occasional BWO. With my vision slipping, it’s hard to see across those 25 feet and determine what the fish are taking. The feeding pattern makes me think they are taking flies in the surface film. I have on a midge emerger pattern: black body, white trailing shuck. Seems like a good choice to me. I think Dan has on the double midge pattern.

Some of our casts appear to be perfectly placed but the fish rises seven inches to the left and a foot upstream from the last rise. I alternate between five fish that are rising, casting a dozen times to each before cycling to the next one. By doing a little mending and reaching I’m getting a good five to six seconds of drag-free drift on most of the casts except to the largest fish in the slowest water the farthest away. He gets about two seconds of a drag-free look. I figure the fish have seen enough of my fly that they aren’t too interested so I switch.

Dan is casting to three or four risers 15 feet below me. He’s a little more patient than I am when it comes to changing flies. It must be part of that ‘H’ issue. I’m not terrible, I can fish to one fish for 20-30 casts before changing a fly. But Dan has patiently worked his one pattern and catches the first fish. It’s a nice 13″ beauty. I’ve noticed these redband trout (a subspecies of rainbow) aren’t nearly the jumpers that other rainbow are, but they can be a lot more colorful.

I head back to my spot with my third midge pattern on. This one has a little less trailing shuck and a CDC wing tuft. I’ve been at it for a good hour now with nothing to show for it except some practice tying knots. The frustration level is building, but again, I’d rather be thinking through this problem than blind casting a dry. Or swinging a nymph. Or yanking a steamer. Or working. Or…

I try to hold a my language in check, but the fish foiling my every attempt are starting to get under my skin. I missed a couple of takes earlier, which is more frustrating than not getting any looks or takes. I finally have a take, set the hook, and the fish does one of the few leaps I’ve seen. He barrels deep into the channel and takes me downriver a couple of dozen yards. And throws the fly. I let loose a few SHD’s (shits hells and damns). Conveniently pronounced “SHiD.”

Having worked with cows on occasion, I know the power of a good cuss word or two. But I’ve always felt a little guilty imbibing in such delinquency when on the water. Fortunately, Sparse Grey Hackle has come to my rescue. In a missive to one Mrs. Lewis Hull dated August 14, 1951, Sparse confides,

“For your solace, words spoken within thirty seconds of raising and either hooking or missing, and then either holding or losing a fish, are not recorded.”

Not only are they not recorded in such situations, more importantly, my wife can’t hear them when I’m on the river. I feel great solace in Sparse’s words and plan on releasing all guilt heretofore harbored when SHDing on the river.

Muttering I move to the shore. My slowly leaking waders have completely soaked both feet now. The air is cold. The wind is cold. My legs and feet are even colder. I stomp around on the bank a bit, but I can’t resist the challenge of the still-rising fish and head back to my spot a couple of minutes later.

I work some line out and fish to one of the closer fish in the faster water. My little midge floats past him as he takes a natural within inches of my fly. I continue casting to this fish, with liberal pauses between casts to make sure I don’t put him down. If I keep the float line a good four feet away, he seems to stay pretty active. But if it gets much closer, he’ll stop for a couple of minutes. It takes me about ten minutes, but I have him on. I land this one without much problem, a nice 14″ beauty.

I slap around on shore again, tie on a double midge pattern, move into the belly-deep water and start working a fish at the head of the slack section. A small protrusion of rocks from the bank is littered with a mat of small dogwood branches. They’re submerged a couple of feet, but they must be about three feet thick and sticking out six feet from the bank. They form the top of the pool where an indentation into the bank runs about 20 feet downriver from there then sweeps back toward the center of the river. This area is the slack water with the faster channel running from the branch pile at the top directly to the bottom of the sweeping bank. In the middle of this sweeping bank it is about ten feet wide from the fast channel to the bank.

The largest fish has been consistently feeding in the slack water and another good-sized fish is working right on top of the branch pile. I have cast enough for the big guy, it’s time to try this fellow since I don’t have to navigate three speeds of water, only two. My second drift past him brings him up, only to take a natural within inches of my fly. SHD! A good ten casts later and I lip him, feeling his weight and bringing his body to the top of the water. He shakes loose and gives me the fin as he rolls away. SHD! SHD!

I noticed that the natural he took had some upright wings. It appeared to be a BWO from here. The fish are still porpoising in their rises, so I tie on a BWO emerger.

Having put down my target I work the far edge of the fast seam where two are rising. From the corner of my upstream eye I notice a fish make a splashy rise. I pivot and cast above where I think the rise was. My fly floats toward me and the fish rises again with a little less show, but still with more aggression than the ones I have been casting to. At least I can clearly see his position now, a couple of feet from where I originally thought. I pull the fly from the water and throw it to what I think is about six feet above the rise.

The sun reflects a little stronger from this angle, like hundreds of lights strobing at me from the riffles. Where is my fly? I create an imaginary 3′ by 3′ box around where I think it landed—anything moving within that box will get a tug on the rod from me. The box rapidly glides downriver. The intensity of the moment—the all—consuming focus as I hunch forward, eyes squint and dart, shoulders knotted and left hand stripping slack line—is part of the thrill for the stalker.

A small bulge forms in the water looking slightly less natural than the riffles. I would like to think my reflexes are fluid, that I see, and my arm immediately, smoothly, lifts the rod tip. Instead, there’s this pause as my eyes see, brain registers the pictures, interprets it as a potential rise, then sends the impulse to my arm which gives a jerk. SHD and fly simultaneously pock the sky. My fly was a good two feet below the bulge, leaving a momentary bubble trail.

I repeat the process. I find myself mussitating, “Come on, come on…grab the D fly!” I’m a self-talker, a trait I inherited from my father. Actually, it’s probably learned behavior and not inherited as I spent many hours helping Dad work on a car or fix an appliance, patch a hole in the wall or build a house. Though he has a much more civil tongue than I. I’m not quite sure where I picked up the potty talk, but it definitely wasn’t from my parents. I blame it on peers.

I’m not sure if it’s the talk, or what, but another bulge appears. Optics wired to synapses mated with neurons and dendrites connected to the cerebellum fire an impulse through the nerves and tensed muscles which again jerks the rod. But this time a weighty splash is attached to the end of my line, and not just a fly.

Dan tapes this one at about 17 1/2″.

I leave the BWO emerger on and take two more of the risers. Three hours of fishing to risers is the best kind of frustrating I can imagine.

Post Script

We moved up river to Beetle Bank where I caught another four redbands to end the day. The next two days brought similar results with fish feeding at our new hole which I dubbed “The Curse-ed Hole” (I think I’ll rename it to “The Cursing Hole”). These fish were rising from about 11:30-3:00 each day—the only place on the river where we found consistent risers. The second day we scouted some other water and picked up a few fish here and there. The third day I went back to Beetle Bank after fishing Cursing Hole and picked up another four fish, one of them a real beauty at just a shade under 19″, but beautiful coloring. I’m trying to leave my fish in the water for shots when I’m alone instead of putting them on the rocks (you’ll notice an exception below). I had the fish in the shallows, unhooked and my camera on him when he slipped away. I ended up catching about 8 fish per day from 14″-19″. Not quite the numbers as other years on the South Fork Boise, but some great fishing nonetheless. Mike, Dan’s friend from Boise, met up with us Saturday and I had a great time fishing with him.

 

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