Brother and I made our semi-annual trip up to the park last week. We had a great time as usual. Temperatures were a little warm during the day but they cooled off enough in the evening to where we could sleep comfortably.
Fishing was steady but not spectacular. We can usually figure out the right dry/dropper combination early but we struggled to find a dry they would take consistently. There were some yellow mayflies (sulphurs?) and yellow sallies that came off in the evening but not in significant numbers. Yellow caddis and yellow stimulators did not generate a ton of strikes. We probably caught more fish with the dropper (generally a bh prince for me). A parachute Adams or March Brown took some fish - 100% of the fish up on Walker Camp Prong since that's all we fish up there.
I lost my biggest fish the first afternoon we were up there. We were fishing close to camp in a place where we've had some luck catching browns on a dry. I threw a #16 para March Brown and was in the process of picking up the line for my next cast when a good fish hit. I fought it for a bit and then it when down a slight waterfall into a deeper run below me. I edged closer to the drop off and watched as it jumped about 3 feet into the air...spectacular fish...mid teens in length. It continued to head downstream stripping 25-30 feet of line from my 4 wt before I could turn it. I could not chase it without taking a splash in the deeper run so I tried to coax it back up to me. Everything was going well until it wasn't. I was applying steady pressure (nothing excessive) but the line went limp when he was still 20-25 feet away from me. No line break...the fly was still there...guess he wasn't hooked that well. Bummer.
We'll be heading back up this fall...can't wait. Brother said we need to make this trip 1 or 2 more times a year...I told him I'd love that though I don't think I can sale that to the home front.
