The Magic Hour

Today I had an hour (actually 90 minutes) to fly fish because of a delightful interruption to my schedule in the form of coffee out with my wife Jocelyn. That was an easy decision and it’s always great for us to get some time together.

That meant I was going to be fly fishing in a more local creek than I sometimes frequent and that I would be doing so a little later in the morning (11am) than I often start. What I hoped, as a result, was that there would be some topwater action from the wild rainbows and native brookies…and I was rewarded with exactly that.

I love fishing dry dropper style on my 8’6” 4wt. My Orvis rod is pretty amazing and can throw very tight loops in tight quarters that are the situation on this lovely stream.

So beautiful.

During the short session I had plenty of action with multiple decent size rainbows and one really nice brookie. Most of them were successful helping me with the release portion of catch and release negating the requirement to net them to pull the barbless hook.

One nicer rainbow as kind enough to smash the caddis fly I was using as the dry and I was blown away at how amazing the colors were.

I am going to say it…the new Orvis Helios F is an amazing fly rod for my stroke. I love fishing it and look for any excuse to bring it to the water. So accurate and so fun.

I also took a new pair of wading boots on their second day of use and am happy to share that the Simms G3 Guide Boots are really nice. Studded them up and they are super grippy and comfy (much better the 2nd time out). I prefer laced boots because I am paranoid and not very handy. Very confident I can put in a new pair of laces vs. fixing the Boa thing.

On a negative note, my Korkers lightweight wading boots (Bantam Lite) have been quite the dissapointment. Less than two years old with maybe 10 trips on them and the stitching blew out. Got a pair of Simms Access boots on their way.

How is your fishing going this year?

Tight lines,

Mike