Methow River Report 7.7.16
Got a chance to hit the Methow River for the day and decided to run through some of the new flies in the shop. Starting off with some of the Fulling Mill flies, my first fly was a Slum Hopper in brown. There were plenty of stone flies around, but since I didn't bring any myself, this fly came close to size and color. On my second cast, I saw the rise and take from a nice cutthroat, but it got away after a brief moment.
Well that worked, so I tied on a Moodah Poodah in olive. After about 10 minutes, I had a take from a smaller rainbow that stayed buttoned until I got it to the net. I switched over to a red Dirty Hippy from Umpqua. I moved down to the next section, started at the head in the broken water and had a take after about 4 casts. This was another small cutthroat of about 10". I switched out to a 409 from Umpqua and continued to work the same water. I managed to catch a mix of rainbows and cutthroats, but nothing of any size. Most of them ran in the 10"- 12" range.
I always have to throw a streamer when I'm out, so I put a Polyleader onto my dry line and tied on a olive Cat Toy (also from Umpqua). I ran the fly down through into a little deeper water in the run and felt the tug. My reward was a nice rainbow of about 15". After working the run a little more, I had another take from a nice cutthroat, but this one got away about 15' out in front of me.
Overall, I would say the new flies that I tried did really well. It always pays to bring something new into the area. The Methow River continues to drop and will be great wading water in about a week; that is, if it we don't get any heavy rains. Stop in to the shop and check out what's new in the fly bins and enjoy a cup of our locally roasted coffee from Blue Star.
Want to try out some new flies as well? Check out our selection of flies here