EZ and I hit the HI for about an hour on Sunday morning. The rain was heavy, but we decided a little rain shouldn't stop us. We got to the river about 9:30. At cornchuckers corner, there was a school of fish busting the surface. It was a scene I haven't witnessed in quite some time. It looked like a fish hatchery tank at feeding time. We drove a little further up river and pulled over to wade the runs between the boat ramp and corn corner. The fish were breaking the surface as far as the eye could see. I started with a bugger, but got nothing. EZ hooked up with a nice bow on a PT nymph, so I switched up. I caught a small brown, and a few minutes later, a nice fat 12 inch brown. I caught a couple more small browns, but wanted to try my luck with a dry fly. EZ caught a few more bows, and joined me in the quest to match the hatch. I literally had fish jumping within 3 yards of me, and saw a sporadic hatch of bwos, a few caddis, a couple of cahills, a stonefly, and what appeared to be hendricksons, but could not get any action with a dry. I tried about a dozen different dry flies and couldn't get a single hit - not even a rejection. EZ managed to catch a nice bow on a BWO, but it broke him off before he could get it to hand. A little over an hour after we started fishing, the water came up. The rain was so heavy it was very difficult to wade. I couldn't see the bottom, and even though it was only one generator, we decided to get out of the river. We both needed to be home by 1:00 p.m., so the timing worked out well. It was a good short trip; though frustrating because we couldn't seem to get dialed in with the hatch despite thousands of fish feeding like crazy. Interestingly, the surface activity completely died once the water came up. I need to fish the HI a few more times before summer arives.
