Sean Cowman
With high summer sun, the afternoons on the Blue tend to be a little slow. However, once our trusty afternoon storm began to roll in, things certainly changed. Lower barometric pressure and air temperatures had fishing conditions right where we wanted them! Fish began rising all around us, moving in and out of feeding lanes and eating just about everything we could get in front of them. The key this time of year is avoiding fishing in direct sunlight mid-day. If you can avoid that, your experience on the water will change drastically, for the better. Fish began rising to small baetis patterns along the bank (Film Critic #18) and below the surface we found leeches to be a key pre-storm meal ticket (Mayer's Mini Leech #16). It ended up being incredible compared to when we first arrived, do not let the rain scare you away from the river!