12 Hours on 4 Rivers.

I rarely fish on the weekends these days, but Saturday, I made an opening day exception. I met up with Curt (thanks for the fun day) around 7am on the Main Fork of the Tuolumne to start things off.

As usual, the T was beautiful and looked very fishy. Surprisingly, the water was not high and was actually a little lower than I had seen it on previous outings. What didn't change is the tough fishing. I've only pulled a few fish out of this river in the few times I've been there. Nothing happened today. Not even a bump.

Around 10am, we decided to head to Cherry Creek, above the power house. The water was rocking. I wasn't expecting so much flow. Much higher than the last time I was here. Unfortunately, access was difficult and there weren't a whole lot of good spots to fish. Eventually we managed to find a location where some small fish hung out. I caught a handful, all 10 inches or less. Like the last time I was on the river, darker flies seemed to be their favorite flavor. And today, wooly buggers and anything with a marabou tail attracted the most attention. Even if it only got them close enough to see the smaller soft hackle and pound that instead.

After a few hours, we went down to the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne. I've never fished here before. It was crowded for such a small stream. I guess the access was too easy for people to pass up. Initially it was slow going, but as time wore on and I started getting down deep with the flies, it improved.

Because the river was small and the water was cold, I started high sticking some weighted soft hackles with split shot on the leader. This seemed to be the best way to go until the evening when the fish were starting to come to the surface after swung flies. At that point, I put on a size 10 steelhead pattern in the rear with a smaller soft hackle upfront. They were loving the combo. This particular pattern produces well on the Stanislaus, and did well here. It is an ugly little thing with red dubbing and very flashy wings. When swung slowly in the right conditions, it is hard for trout to resist. Again, nothing that large was caught, but for a day that started out slowly, you end up happy with anything.

The day was wrapped up by heading to the Rainbow Pools over on the South Fork of the Tuolumne. There was only an hour or so left of daylight, so one had to be quick. I was happy to see that no one was here and I had the place to myself. Again, with heavily weighted soft hackles, I'd drop them into pools, only to let them rise near the tail outs. This really attracted the fish. They'd follow the flies from 6-7' depths to near the surface. Quite a lot of movement for such cold water. If they didn't take on the rise, a twitch or two on the rod often made them commit.

For someone who likes to swing flies, I did very little of it on this day. Mostly high sticking or very close in swinging while holding almost all of the line out of the water. Slow and deep was the trick. I ended up with a dozen or more fish to hand. Most small, the largest being only 15”. Still, quite an enjoyable day.