browns seemed to be males, so maybe the spring run of browns was an early territorial male pre-spawning thing. But several characteristics were agreed upon. The first, hardest to believe, was that they WERE there, and that they were huge. Secondly, they loved little mayflies, at least during a hatch. Third, many of them were not leader shy and would tolerate a lot of casting. Fourth, that they tended to range wildly throughout and across a run while actively feeding, rising first at the head, then the tail, then one side, then another, tending to complicate the presentation, because, fifth, they generally wouldn't bother to move laterally more than an inch or two to chase any one particular fly. And sixth, there were probably much bigger fish that we hadn't even seen yet. Sleep was difficult. Day Two The three of us were to share Beat One, stretching several miles above the upper bridge, water we hadn't touched the previous day. We could, if needed, encroach a bit on the upper end of Beat Two, below the bridge. At 7:30 we drove the mile to the upper bridge. I opted to hike downstream a ways, work back to the bridge and through the water above, while Dave and Frank would leave a few pools above the bridge, then work up from there. For two hours there were no hatches, and although I worked some good water, rose nothing. I fished slowly and methodically so as not to waste water before the hatch began, even trying a nymph but catching only a single 3 lb. whitefish. At 9:30 I was approaching the bridge and spotted some rises. I circled the huge, deep pool below the bridge and determined that the splashy rises were all whitefish. The bridge itself was a single lane iron structure that cleared the water by about three feet and spanned a flow narrowed to fifteen feet. I looked under it and saw three noses dimpling the surface continuously. The only casting position was kneeling in the water from the downstream bridge shoulder, which put me within six or seven feet from the nearest fish. Just then a dude and his guide arrived, choosing apparently to park at the top of their allotted water. Snaking a cast under the structure, I immediately hooked a fish I never saw that ran downstream into the deep hole and stuck me on bottom something so that I had to rebuild my leader.
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