Preparedness

IT'S COMING SOON

A Week And A Half

perfect timing

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.. After a day on the water it's just plain common sense to relax at the neighborhood watering hole. The neighbors are there. The pros are there. The visitors are there. The women are there. A cold one is mandatory.
.. Or, dullards take note, go to the vise in anticipation of the bright moon. Given the weather forecast, and the slowly cooling waters, and the increasing exuberance of the fish; a mouse or three might be in order.
.. The big fish from Hebgen Reservoir ought to hit the popular aquatic parking lots in numbers just about the time the bright moonlight revisits our skies. The timing for the Madison River this year is neigh unto perfect!
.. There is some discussion among us crazies that use this monster fly - "is it the silhouette or is it the wake?" Our cousins across the pond have settled on the wake solution and have a most un-mousy mouse. Their fly is reminiscent of the Bomber so familiar to steelhead aficionados. Can you say riffling hitch?
.. The fisher folks in New Zealand are already calling this the year of the mouse because of the population explosion of invasive mice, and the mouse eating trout down there. And they have the necropsy's to prove it.
.. There is a good crop of mice here too this year. The coyote numbers are down. The perfect spring provided both warmth and wet that yielded good forage, (the wet was hard on the baby grouse though.) And, too, the lingering salubrious weather has allowed frisky behavior among the rodent population as they expand their feeding territories, (along the river banks where grass stays greener longer and seeds mature later.).
.. In New Zealand it's the Beech Tree Seeds: here it's the grass seeds. The rodents of our meadows are feeding voraciously - so will the trout!
.. We've always used a mousy silhouette. This year we're going with all three. An English Torpedo Mouse, a Black Bomber, and a Yellow Headed Mouse. Just one at a time, mind you.
.. Now then, can fly fishers in the neighborhood forgo a night or two at the pub? We'll see.

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