April 16, Yellowstone River

Taking Connie and Bob on the Yellowstone was a real treat. The day was cloudy and cold but the company was warm. The day started slow with Connie hooking and loosing three fish in a row. One was a big rainbow who shook us loose after a long battle.

Advice: I tell my anglers that the ration of strikes to landed fish should be about like a baseball players batting average. If you are consistently landing one out of every three strikes, you are doing alright. If you consistently loose five or six fish to every one you land you are doing something wrong.

With Connie, there were no major problems.

He asked "what am I doing wrong?" I told him it looked, to me, like he was hitting a little late, but really he should not over analyze it. If you over react and start trying to fix something that is not broken, you screw it up worse. A hook set should be instinctual after a few days of fishing.

The next fish that hit Connie's line, was struck well, played well and we caught it. I think he was just a bit rusty after winter. He did not have any problems after that.
Like in baseball, every hitter has a day he goes 0 for 4 and days he goes 4 for 4.

After lunch we were able to hook and land about a half dozen fish in a side channel on dries. The fish were midging, and although there thousands of naturals, with the right drift they were eating our flies well.

We used the GT midge, ties by my buddy Rich Christians. They also ate a parachute midge.

The afternoon fished well. Bob caught a great fish in about six inches of water. We saw the fish rise, but instead of switching to our midge rods, he hucked a rubber legged stone in tight. The fish grabbed it as soon as it landed. Nice big rainbow.

I should have snapped a few photos.

It turned out to be a great fishing day, especially since it never reached 40 degrees.