A frustrating day of fishing. The first hour and a half of fishing was pretty dead. The trout were inactive but then they started feeding from the surface, something I had not seen in the past. They have always been feeding just below the surface on emergers. It might look like they are rising but what you are typically looking at are their tails or the tops of their backs. I watched many open mouths taking something from the surface. I learned my lesson today. I have been trying to only carry items in my vest I know I will use. Stupid, the stuff doesn’t weigh much at all. I didn’t have dry flies or terrestrials. I was using a piece of white wool for a strike indicator. Two times I watched a large trout come up and grab my indicator and hold it long enough for me to feel his weight. Today while walking to the river I saw more grasshoppers than I had ever seen here. Damn! It was only 2:30 so I hiked back to my truck, drove back to my trailer, rigged for hoppers and dries, drove back to the river, and hiked back to my spot. The trout were back to feeding subsurface! Almost funny. I tried hoppers, ants, beetles, and super small black dry flies for a while without any action. I had no chance of seeing the super small black dry flies. I went back to the typical San Juan rig again with no luck. Oh well. It was a beautiful day.
When fishing in the “Quality Waters” you only see serious fly fisher people, no kids, no families. My campground is just below the “Quality Waters” so there aren’t any special regulations. Families walk by heading to the river, dad and maybe mom carrying open face spinning outfits and the kids carrying the good old Zebco closed faced spinning reel outfits. They look like they are on a mission, anxious to get a bite on a worm. Looks like fun to me.
There were two older guys across and upstream from me maybe 50 yards . I heard a little commotion, looked, and one guy had gone swimming. He was all the way in and then was sitting on the river bottom with the water over his waders. That water is cold! He went to shore, came back, and toughed it out for a while but soon started walking towards the road.