Well, as much as I miss the blue skies down in the canyon, I’ve got to say that the last couple weeks have been really, really good on the Lower D. Today’s trip, with complete newbies, produced some amazing fish in the net and even more impressive were the ones that proved too worthy an adversary. We were either broken off or shook by some truly large fish throughout the day. The flows are back up at 4000cfs and cool, so the fish are super happy. The perma-haze seems to keep the fish active. There aren’t as many caddis around and so the noses in the eddies are a bit harder to find. But they’re still some to hunt! Hot bugs of late… Psycho Prince in blue and #18. Purple Zebra Midge in #18&20. Drowned Henry’s Fork Caddis. Black Jimmy legs in #8. Olive Micro-May in #18. Small olive Sparkle Pupae.
We did hook two steelhead today on nymph rigs. I believe one ate the Psycho Prince and the other for sure was on the Jimmy. The fish are in there but I’m not sure I’d a do a trip purely targeting them just yet. And the fact that they’ll eat a well-drifted nymph is good enough for me as of now.