If I Could Save Time In A Bottle, The First Thing That I'd Like To Do - - - -

Awoke this morning with two bruises the only evidence of yesterday's encounter with the EB's rock strewn shoreline. Had plans to fish one of my favorite places on the freestones today, but they were put in the TBD category last night. The trip was back on the schedule this morning. Spent a couple hours replenishing my Invarias and Cahills, (always a sign of prior success on the river), and was ready to go.

Left the fishing camp promptly at two with the sky overcast and the freestones all showing temps around 60 degrees. To say I felt great would be a lie, (nobody over eighty ever feels great), but I never gave taking an Advil a thought and took on one of the more difficult pieces of water that I still fish. 

Never saw a mayfly on the water or in the air, there were a few caddis and but an occasional rising fish. It was evident from the start, however, that the fish were hungry, rising fish ate, and two fish that refused my first offering came back and ate the second. The Cahill, that was so good yesterday, never got a look. It was iso's all the way today.

One thing that I found interesting. There is a place maybe 30 feet wide where the water goes from a six inch riff into a three foot deep pool. There is ALWAYS a fish somewhere along the break. Put on a brand new, but old iso, (never liked the too bright body color), and fished the entire 30 feet without getting even a sniff. Changed to an iso that was a little bedraggled but with the "right" body color and hooked three fish in the same 30 feet! As soon as I clean out the plugged gutter, I'll by tying isos with the "right" colored body tomorrow.  

The fishing - Was very good. It's been almost two weeks since the drakes and hardly anyone goes down the BR after the drakes. Yes, their mouth's still showed where they had been hooked, (most multiple times), but they had lost the caution that comes from day after day ducking anchors and oars and fighting for your very life each time you make a mistake. The fish were not big, (most were 13 to 16 inch rainbows), but I thought everyone of them was bigger than he/she was because of how hard they fought. An18 inch brown was fish of the day.

When the sun came out at 5:00 the fishing stopped and I began the long walk back to the car. It was a three and a half  hour trip with two and a half half hours of blue ribbon fishing. Surprisingly saw two anglers each over a quarter of a mile away. Should you go? Probably not. Why? If you fish the BR and know some places, look at the water temps and give it a shot. If you've never done it, don't try now. The next sunny day may well push the temps into the no fish zone 'til September. For the next two months the sulfurs in Deposit are a much surer thing, but maybe next year, when there are fish everywhere you will remember, and give the freestones a try.