Millers River Evening - May 29

It was 5pm when I hit the Kempfield section last night. The forecast called for t-storms around dark so I knew that my trip would be weather shortened. The river was higher then last week but still wadable. I began, as usual, by drifting a large, dark softhackle at the top of the island, then through that beautiful glide down to the large pool at the end of the section. I took four large browns, all between 14-18 inches, using that method. The last two on the wet fly were caught at the large rock at the beginning of that large pool. They took advantage of the deep water and it took a while to get both of them in.

Large dark caddis began to show so my tactics changed. Off came the softhackle and on went a large bivisible dry called the Millers Bivisible. (see 1/12/2009 post for photo and tying instructions) This is a great fly to prospect with because of it's visibility and floating properties, great for casting through the riffles in lower light. There were very few rising fish to be seen even with all of the insect activity but that didn't stop the browns from smashing my caddis offering. Another four browns came to the net. The riffles that run along the island produced three of the four browns, all on short upstream casts.

It had clouded over when I called it quits at 7:30. The deluge began when I was half way home to Northampton. All told it was a good night. I got to enjoy what the Kempfield Run is famous for - upstream dry fly fishing to eager browns!!

Ken