West '05 Trip - Day 2

Posted: 2006-01-10
By: Randy Cochran

I awoke early after a cold night in my car, camping at the Yellowtail Dam Afterbay. It would be the first of many nights in my car due to laziness, late arrival or cold temps... whatever might end up being an excuse to not put the tent up. Despite the cold night, I was able to get motivated enough to make a supper of jerk chicken, corn on the cob and a baked potato on my propane grill.

My arrival this morning would be considerably earlier than yesterday; 6:45 am to be precise.

The water seemed a bit too cold to start off with dries and I saw no activity to suggest otherwise, so I rigged up with a pink scud and red midge larva dropper under an indicator. I managed 2 small browns in about 10 mins, one on each fly.

Scouting around, I walked a few of the braided channels, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of one or more of the larger denizens reportedly swimming this river. Successfully spooking 1 large brown from slackwater shallows and seeing no more in some very promising water, I decided to head out to hopefully greener pastures.

I drove back up to I-90 and over to my next destination, the Stillwater River. First order of business would be to stop in to a local Columbus-area fly shop for a few flies, tippet and other nonsense. After chatting up the clerk for awhile, I headed up to one of the lower accesses for a bit.

The Stillwater is truly gorgeous. Amazing pocket water interspersed with classic riffle/run/pool structure, there is nearly anything you could want. I caught a quick few, an equal amount of browns and bows, before heading upstream as far as possible.

Dusk came along as I arrived at the uppermost campground for non-stop action. Any dry thrown into rough-ish water would draw a fish to the surface. I caught and released many this evening, mostly cuttbows. All were extremely beautiful. The variations in color were astounding. Many of the hybrids displayed brilliant orange or pink-red belly mottling, not unlike Midwest brookies.

Failing to find a free campsite, I ended up driving over to the Boulder River to a roadside camp for the night.