I had the pleasure of guiding Don and Dave on Monday. Like a lot of people I take out, they were interested in my Wet Flies 101 course. As with last Friday, the day claimed two-out-of-three positive ingredients: lovely weather (blazing, brilliant sunshine), significant hatch activity (caddis, midges, stones, mayflies) — but sadly, not much going on feeding-wise. The guys made the best of it with good spirits and an enthusiasm for learning. Don focused mainly on near-surface presentations like the mended swing, and Dave plumbed the depths with short-line dead drifts. Both methods were right today, as both caught trout. Well done, gentlemen. You are both well on your way to having some terrific days. Water temperature was 44 degrees in the upper TMA. That’s cold for this late in April. We had to get out and warm up every so often.

Man working: Don making some upstream mends, watching his drift like a hawk. Rats! I forgot to get a picture of Dave. My bad.

They’ll stone you when you’re trying to be so good.

After we wrapped up, I ventured downstream to see if the H-word was out. Yes, in decent numbers. But due to high, cold water, predators were few and far between. Still managed my first trout of the year on Hendrickson wet, dapping it over a feeding fish. Ker-pow!

Hello, my three-tailed friend. I missed you.