Getting your ass handed to you
I got absolutely destroyed over two days on this venerable piece of water, with no fish landed. Hell, I didn’t even get an eat. The Ranch Section of the Henrys Fork is steeped in tradition and history, like few rivers in the US are. The Ranch Section is similar to chalk stream fishing in England, on the Test or Avon, where you never cast until you see a rising fish and in most cases it must be done when the fish is upstream of you. It should be noted that not all guides who work this section of the Henry’s Fork are so strict, but mine was, and I had to respect his dedication to how he’d learned to fish and guide “The Ranch”. We didn’t make a single blind cast in two days and I was just fine with that.
Many of the best dry fly anglers in the world have run into this body of water and slinked away at the end of the day, complaining about too much wind or not enough light. “If conditions were right, I’d have landed 10”, they’ll say. For me, I had plenty of opportunities at some 22-24 inch Rainbows (Brookies and Cutties are also in this part of the river) but we just couldn’t get any of the fish we saw to eat our bugs. One fish, a fat dark Rainbow, refused 9 different dry flies presented over an hour, with not so much as a sniff.
Halfway through day one, I started to get a little frustrated and my casting became erratic (a polite way of saying total crap). But I also had moments of shear elation where the fly was dropped perfectly in front of the fish, only to be ignored. Again, and again this story was repeated over the two days and I eventually had my guide casting to rising fish, with the same predictable results. Clearly the fish gods were angry with me and I just had to suck it up. I had had grand visions of a Ranch Section fish caught on a dry fly that would adorn the trophy case that resides in my memory bank, but it was not to be. Not even close!
The bottom line is that when you run into a skunk like this, there is not a fly angler alive who has not experienced the pain and frustration of a tough day or two on the water. It’s just part of the deal and these disagreeable days help to highlight and elevate the good to exceptional days that we all get to experience as anglers, every now and then.
Sometimes you just have to take the beating and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. Just enjoy the place where you are at and the people you are with. And remember, a bad day on the water is worth 50 in the office!