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> An evening drive down the Madison and a fun flyshop

After spending the morning and early afternoon at Norris Hot Springs, Lena and I drove down through the Madison River valley to get in some evening fishing. Mid-afternoon we stopped at Beartooth Flyfishing, which is one of my favorite fly shops because I like the flies designed by the owner, Dan Delekta, and wanted to buy some more to use as models for tying my own. I like his sense of how to mix in flashy synthetics without detracting from the buggy appearance of the fly overall. His SureStrike nymph pattern became one of my favorite attractor (Attractor: Flies not designed to imitate any particular insect, but to incorporate characteristics attractive to trout. When trout aren't feeding selectively, attractors often outperform careful imitations as searching patterns because they are easier to see and incorporate more strike-triggering characteristics. They include legends like the Adams, Bivisible, and Royal Wulff.) nymphs last year and has worked well for me in Montana and Washington. This time I picked up a box full of other nymphs and dries to try, primarily as attractors (Attractor: Flies not designed to imitate any particular insect, but to incorporate characteristics attractive to trout. When trout aren't feeding selectively, attractors often outperform careful imitations as searching patterns because they are easier to see and incorporate more strike-triggering characteristics. They include legends like the Adams, Bivisible, and Royal Wulff.), buying two of each pattern to fish and one to save as a tying model.

After the shop, we hit a couple spots along the Madison in the evening, and I finally broke my short but painful streak of skunkings or near-skunkings on this famous river with a decent 14" brown and a couple smaller ones. There wasn't much bug activity compared to a week earlier, and I only saw a couple rises, but attractors (Attractor: Flies not designed to imitate any particular insect, but to incorporate characteristics attractive to trout. When trout aren't feeding selectively, attractors often outperform careful imitations as searching patterns because they are easier to see and incorporate more strike-triggering characteristics. They include legends like the Adams, Bivisible, and Royal Wulff.) and soft-hackles were able to get some attention right at dusk.