Big Bugs in the Mountain West
Catching Trout on the Spokane River & Rock Creek, Montana
Summer is here, and the Pro Staff and Fly Designers of CATCH Fly Fishing are hard at it in the Northwest testing bugs new and old to make sure they really do taste better. CATCH’s own Alan Green, Britten Jay, Forrest Jay, Kevin Eneroth and Bjorn Otsby have been spending some time fishing the Spokane River and hitting the salmon fly hatch on Rock Creek.
With run off over and water levels coming into the zone, the Spokane opened up at just the right time. Britten Jay and Bjorn Otsby have been floating the Spokane since the minute it opened preparing for Britten’s busy guide season on the river.
“Hands down, the best producing fly on the surface for the ‘Kan this year is Hard A’s Chubby in ice-dub red,” said Jay.
He doesn’t know why, but this fly was killing it during the evening caddis hatch the whole week of the opener. That makes no sense, could it be magic you ask? I am not going to tell you it isn’t. If you don’t believe in magic, CATCH’s rubberlegs swung deep in the transition water stack the fish up, too, and will continue to work as the fish move into the riffles as the water drops.
Green and the Jay boys spent last week braving the new log jams and heavy traffic on Rock Creek to test out CATCH’s stone fly patterns. Britten’s Salmon Fly and various CATCH exclusive Gypsy King variants were turning fish on nearly every cast, under the watchful eyes of the mountain goats and bighorn sheep perched on the cliffs above. Fishing was hot for the CATCH crew with Eric’s Salmon Fly, too, and some secret new patterns we’ve been working on may be even better yet (keep checking back as these new patterns make it onto the website, and into our 2015 catalog). After a few days of heavy boat traffic and lots of naturals, we noticed the fish started rejecting some bugs that had been working really well. We notice the Goldens were moving up the river, too, so on went CATCH’s Golden Stonefly Stinger, and those short strikes were never a problem again the rest of the day.
The salmon fly hatch may be drawing to a close in most places, but the goldens and attractors that are so popular on the rivers now will be in hot demand all summer. With new colors, new wings, new twists – CATCH keeps bringing you the bugs that work on the water, and fly out of the shop. And you know our guys are out there, literally with a vise on the river, tweaking the ones that work to make them even better and dreaming up new stuff that will surprise both fish and angler in the season to come. See you on the water!