• Buzz
• Braton
• Generation: 1 from 9am-11am
• Weather: mostly sunny, still warm enough to wet wade.
• Flies: Para Adams, Clousers, midges

We floated from the dam to happy hollow sunday, and put in just as the water was falling out. Just one load of canoes going in when we got there, so we gave them plenty of time to get downstream. I saw some risers so I decided to start with a Para Adams on the 3wt. First cast landed a Rainbow, third cast a brown. Good start to the day before even having to paddle. I went downstream to the bluffs and didn’t see dad behind me for a while. That means only one thing: he’s busy catching fish. It was nice to see the TWRA down there, they checked my license and were on their way upstream. After about an hour, Dad showed up, he had caught a dozen fish on dries around the steps. I hadn’t done anything lately on the surface, so I went to another mayfly pattern with a midge dropper. The first cast yielded an explosive strike on the dry and a 12″ brown. The next few were rainbows in the seams that nailed the midge. All the fish seemed to be in great shape, and the colors on the rainbows was very vibrant.

The river was much less crowded than we thought it would be, thanks to football and the coming deer season. Later in the afternoon I switched to a clouser and hooked two nice rainbows that did not want to play my silly little games once they saw the net. As we got closer to Happy Hollow, it was back to the dries with some nice fish rising in the seams. Happy wasn’t too crowded, and the fish were going crazy on a hatch of black midges. Dad kept some fish busy while I went to get the truck, and we decided that was a great day to close out the summer of ‘09. Caught a bunch of fish on the surface, met some great people, and spent yet another day on the water with Dad. It doesn’t get any better than that.

On a different note, it is time for us to get back out there for a river cleanup, thanks to all the A-plus citizens who think the resource is a landfill. As always, leave the river cleaner than you found it, and best of luck.

-Braton