The Bighorn You Don’t Know
Parachute Adams or olive Sparkle Duns work best. The fish are normally not fussy eaters, but sometimes you will see bulges beneath the surface instead of true head-and-tail rises. In these instances, hang a small Pheasant-tail Nymph below your fly or get upstream of the fish and swing a soft-hackle pattern so it rises toward the surface where the fish are feeding.
Most of the dry-fly action on this river is in the slack water near or below a fast riffle or at the tail-out of a slack-water pool. Even on good days the fish will not rise everywhere—they tend to gather in pods in the most productive areas or in “safe zones” along the banks in and around Russian olive roots and branches and other hang-ups.
The largest trout, especially browns, surreptitiously slurp bugs and rarely announce their hiding places. These fish are masters of the invisible rise; all you see is a quick movement of the water and a small ripple. If you find one of these giants and precisely present a fly right in front of its snout, it will usually take it with confidence. Large trout also usually manage to wrap your leader around some obstacle in fairly short order, so it takes luck as well as skill to land these fish.
Green Drakes hatch in late May or early June and are the first large flies of the year, which is nice after squinting to see your #20 fly. Use a #10 or 12 olive Sparkle Dun or Olive Wulff. This hatch is very spotty and while it can produce outstanding fishing at times, it is not dependable.
The fun really starts in late May or early June when early-morning Tricos begin hatching. As soon as it is light enough to see, there are trout rising in a fury. They are so focused on feeding that pulling a few trout out of a pod rarely puts them down.
Male Tricos hatch in the evening just before dark and usually molt into spinners at or before sunrise. Females begin to hatch at sunrise and quickly molt into spinners. Just before the spinner fall takes place in the early morning, there are fogs of Tricos swarming above the riffles. When they begin laying eggs, they can coat the stream surface with their spent, fallen bodies and the trout gorge themselves.
A size 18 or 20 Parachute Adams works well as any fly if you can get it right in front of the fish. Sometimes a bigger or off-color fly actually works better than a realistic imitation because it stands out on the water. Pale Morning Duns (PMDs) begin hatching around the same time of the year as Tricos. When the trout are just finishing the last of the day’s spent Tricos, PMDs begin to hatch. Trout quickly switch to these bigger insects, so you need to pay attention. Use a #16-18 Cannon’s Bunny Dun or Aire-Flow Cutwing Dun.
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