Exercising one of my favorite fly fishing fringe benefit muscles – bartering trips and trip intel from like minded fishers in nifty places – this past week led me to trade some Montana spring hatch trip planning and intel for a day chasing redfish out of Rockport.
I’m not telling my buddy down there that I came out the clear winner here, though I did help him cover 5 of 6 nights lodging for nothing (sleeping on an air mattress in spare rooms gets you places). He’s not fished a lot in spring time conditions in the Rockies, and while laying out best guesses on hatches is actually pretty easy, guessing water flows/conditions is a lot harder.
This time of year the low more so than mid-level snows are coming off on the warmer, sunnier days, and pushing flows up and out of what a lot of fishers consider fishable conditions. One of my earliest fly fishing mentors always caught (and still does) the biggest fish of the spring among our cadre by thoughtfully and aggressively chucking big streamers in dirty water, hence my reminding my Rockport Redfish compadre about Zack Matthews’ Ten Tips to Improve Your Bank-Bashing Results (one of the best streamer primers written in the past year if you missed it…).
