Today I got to fish with a long time Tackle Shop friend John Stewart from Ennis. This is the fourth year in a row that John has traveled to the Bitterroot with me to chased the skwala hatch. Today started off much like yesterday with a cold night and low water temps first thing in the morning. We did manage to find a few nice fish before lunch and in fact the first fish of the day was on the dry fly. After that first fish they were on mostly the dropper nymph all morning. A small rubber leg stone nymph in tan dropped a good 2 feet behind the dry was just the ticket. We did manage a good half dozen fish in the morning on drys but the rest came on the nymph.
After lunch we decided to go dry or die and tied on a skwala and a large parachute adams to represent the drakes that were starting to hatch. Instantly it was game on and continued that way for several hours. It was not 5 minutes between rises and we took fish off all the likely spots. What surprised us is that the bigger fish were hungry today and took the skwala or drake about the same. The dry fly fast action lasted till about 5 when the wind kicked up and blew all the may fly’s off the water.
At this time went back to the dry dropper game to finish out the day. The fish were still eating the dropper with abandon but would rarely take the dry. The last fish of a the day a really nice brown rose to the dry skwala only 100 yards above the take out.
Another great day on the water! With the weather staying the same for tomorrow we can expect more good dry fly fishing.
