My plan was to get up early, cook some bacon and eggs, float around on the Delta Clearwater River in our Sea Eagle, and find a nice place to fish here at the Clearwater State Recreation Site.
Well, we slept in. And I got caught up in a book, so I didn't get out of bed until about 10:30. We do have 3G cell service here, and I needed to take care of a couple administrative items. Plus we checked in with family in Florida given that Hurricane Dorian was approaching. It was after 1:00 p.m. by the time I got outside.
I learned my lesson yesterday, so I put on an extra layer of clothes and doubled up my wool socks before slipping on my waders.
Linda is working on another locker-hooking rug, so she was content to stick around the campsite. But she did help me get the FastTrack down the hill where I launched and started paddling around.
I didn't paddle long, as I saw a channel just around the corner from our campsite where the fish were rising to feed on mayflies. I beached the boat, and got busy with the fly rod.
Now, I like to fly fish, but I don't do it that much, and I barely know enough to get by. I'm not an expert by any means, and my casting skills are suspect. But I have a decent collection of flies, and I know the phrase "match the hatch". That refers to trying to use flies that are as close in appearance as possible to the recent bug hatch which is feeding the fish at that moment.
Right now, the Grayling are feeding on the mayflies just floating downriver on the surface. My challenge was to find a "dry fly" (one that floats) that resembles a floating mayfly and to present it properly.
But first, against traditional wisdom, I tried my old trusty olive wooly bugger with a bead head. Got one - fish on!
I just love to watch these Grayling come up and attack a fly in clear water. Plus they are just such a beautiful fish, as I've mentioned before.
I continued with the wooly bugger, but caught no more. So, I kept trying different flies trying to mimic the mayflies. If nothing else, I think my wooly bugger (which is not a floating fly) was a fluke. The fish would only hit a floating dry fly after that, and once I caught one fish on a particular fly, no other fish would eat it.
I caught this small one.
Apparently I had a drop of water on the lens of my waterproof camera.
And then I got into a little pattern of hooking one and losing it, then hooking one and getting it in.
The later ones were a bit bigger - those are nice sized Arctic Grayling.
After trying a dozen or so flies, I finally found a tiny "elk hair caddis" in my collection. And that was the only fly I used that had multiple hits in succession, although I missed most of them. No matter, I was releasing them all anyway.
I landed five and lost at least that many and was a happy camper. As I was about to leave, a fellow from Fairbanks walked by and we chatted. He gave me an "Adam's parachute" fly to try. I tried it, but I got nothing more this afternoon. I'll try again tomorrow.
I shot a little video of the river before I left, but our signal here isn't good enough to upload it. Hopefully, I'll remember to do it later.
Back at the rig, we had leftovers for dinner, Linda continued work on her rug, and I did some reading before calling it a night.
Tomorrow may be identical to today, but I hope to get out a bit earlier.
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