It was raining steadily as I rolled into Graylling late Friday morning. To avoid setting up camp and making lunch in the rain, I went to The Fly Factory and bought a few streamers I didn't really need, then headed to Spike's for a sandwich. The rain finally tapered off as I drove to Keystone Landing to set up my tent, and stayed away for the rest of the afternoon while I fished near the lower end of the flies-only stretch of the mainstream.
I didn't particularly mind the weather--it was cold (high temp about about 48f, water temp about the same), so no flies would hatch, but the overcast skies and high water provided ideal conditions for streamer fishing.
I did take a couple of browns on an olive sculpin pattern in the first 20 minutes or so of my wade. Here's the first trout of the year, an 11" brown:
This one came as I let the streamer dangle in the water. Sometimes in the earliest, coldest part of the season, that works better than retrieving.
It was a long time before I caught my third, though I did have a couple of strikes in between. The last fish came on a dangle too.
Saturday morning broke clear and cold. I threw streamers in the waters near Keystone Landing from about 6-8:30 and had only one hookup. I decided to spend the afternoon on the North Branch floating the same section I did on the last opener. That wasn't the initial plan, but I figured that since the water was high, I would have an easier time floating over the shallow areas where last year I had to get out and drag my pontoon. And there is some nice water in that run. The hendrickson hatch I hoped for(and a fairly heavy one at that) did appear in midafternoon, but very few fish rose to the surface. I don't know which is more frustrating--having my fly scorned by rising fish or having flies with no fish rising. "Good hatches without rises" seemed to be the story with most fishermen I talked with over the weekend, regardless of the branches they fished (this held true on some other rivers too, judging from internet fishing reports), though few people in very limited areas did found some good feeding. I caught a few fish on wet flies and just one on a hendrickson dun. It was still a nice float.
Since Saturday had been quite warm (mid-60s), I thought the streamer fishing on Sunday morning would be better. I didn't find out. I discovered my first night in camp that the battery in my travel alarm had gone dead over the winter. No biggie, I thought: most mornings I wake up around 5 even when I plan to sleep later. I did awake on schedule, but decided to snooze just for a moment, which proved to be unwise when lacking the assistance of a snooze alarm. The next time my eyes opened, it was after 7. Now that's still pretty early, and certainly a decent time to throw some streamers into deep holes and logpiles, but I didn't feel like dragging myself into a cold river on a 30 degree morning in leaky waders. It is getting harder to pull myself out of a warm sleeping bag into a frigid stream as the years go on. I rationalized skipping out on fishing by reminding myself that I needed to break camp in time to make it on the river by early afternoon. So I ate a leisurely breakfast, drank several cups of coffee while resting in a chair and letting the sun warm me, then embarked on the slowest and most meticulous camp-breaking of my outdoor life, in the midst of which I paused to capture this record of a memorable piece of permanent camp furniture at my site:
And I was still at a river landing on the main branch by 11. By that time the temperature was nearing 70 degrees.
I parked my car and hiked to the next landing upstream. The fishing was again slow, to say the least. Over three hours, I picked up 5 or 6 brown trout on wet flies, swinging them downstream as close to brush or logs as I could get. When I reached the landing I'd parked at, I was ready to call it a day. Almost. I decided to sit in the shade and drink a cool beer before packing my gear, and after I finished that, I looked down at the river again and saw a trout rise. I was back in the water in about 30 seconds. A sparse hendrickson hatch was in progress, with equally sparse rises in response. Actually, I couldn't locate any consistent feeders. Five minutes of casting a dun to the spot where a fish had risen once did bring a 9" brown soon to hand. I drew one more hit below an oak leaning far out over the river, but that would be my last contact with a fish on this trip. The three or four minutes between rises stretched to ten, and soon a half an hour passed with no surface feeding at all, despite an occasional sputter of hennie duns.
Now with the day as warm as it was (78 according to my car thermometer), I would love to have stayed later and fished the evening spinner fall. But I needed to be on campus early Monday (in fact, I didn't get there...but that's a story for later) and I didn't want to go in on four hours' sleep. I was on the highway a little after 5, slightly disappointed with the fishing, but grateful for a weekend in the woods and waters as I mulled over the thought that had rewhetted my concentration during the fishless longheurs toward the end of Saturday's float: You don't get to do this forever. Every moment on the river you get is good, whether it unfolds according to your desires or not. Of course, that applies to all other moments, too. Every moment we get will slip away. This is no tragedy, unless they slip by without our gratitude and attention.
Maybe I should remember that the next time I'm torn between fishing at daybreak and sleeping late.
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