Weber River Caddis Hatch

Yesterday I was on the Weber River by 4 o'clock. I decided to try a spot where I had only fished once before. I rigged up with a couple of caddis nymph imititations on 4X tippet with a 9 foot 3X tapered leader. The dropper was a winged pupa and the point fly a bead head nymph that I had bought at Frontier Anglers in Dillon, MT. I placed a foam yellow strike indicator four feet up the line from the split shot that was at the end of the line. Immediately, meaning the first cast, I was into a big white fish, pretty typical for this river. It took the point fly. Also typical, I usually catch most fish on the point fly, being closer to the stream bottom. The reason I mention this is that on the next cast I caught a good size brown (17 incher) on the dropper which was 6 inches higher. Within the next half hour I caught eight fish, seven on the dropper. I had to call my wife, Jennifer, and let her know how great the fishing was. She was as excited as I was. Of course, after the first couple of trout, I noticed the caddis hatch that was in progress. A few weeks earlier during a caddis hatch I had taken throat samples with a stomach pump of a couple of trout and selected these flies to imitate those samples. By 6 o’clock I had landed 20 fish, over half were trout. Several others of course got off. The weather had been overcast and started sprinkling at 5:30. By 6:00, the weather had cleared up and it was sunny. I caught four more fish in the next hour, but not like the action that I had while it was overcast. Here is the breakdown of fish: three cutthroats, 11 browns and 10 white fish.

At 6:30 a truck with three fishermen pulled up. Just after I had gotten back to the car, they were also leaving. I was on the phone again with Jennifer asking her to bring me home a hot dog from Costco. I wanted to tell them they should have been here earlier while it was raining, not now while it was nice and sunny.

The stretch of river I had been fishing was a straight stretch that was shallower on one side, where I waded, and deeper on the opposite side with brush lining the river. There was a distinct spot where the shallow water turned deeper. Along this seam, along the deepest part of the river and along the opposite side of the river next to the brush is where I was catching the fish.