More Pics of "Sha nay nay"

Sorry bird watches, no photos of swallows today!  This beast of a hen crushed the streamer, perhaps 25 feet off the bank.  I'm not sure if she followed it out from in tight or not but she definitely felt like the bottom at first.  Marcus turned around to see what all the commotion was about to see my rod bent in half and a monster brown thrashing around like a gator.  The fight wasn't what you'd expect, more or less 30 seconds of fear and loathing until Marcus got her in the net.  Hank called her a "Day Ruiner" but for me it was the fish of a lifetime.  We taped her at 27 and change with a girth of 16!  

Obviously the day went down hill from that but we managed to put a few other nice ones in the net, an 18, a 19, an 20 got off... Mostly browns and all on streamers.  We saw one march brown, zero caddis, zero baetis, and the birds were back on the midges.  Visibility was between a foot and half to two feet.  Got to love Mother's day Caddis Hatch!  (Even if you don't see a caddis all day)...   

The wind was absolutely ripping today.  It was snowing pretty hard around Livingston and the fish were definitely not on.  I saw one rise in the shields, which was equally colored up as the Jelly, maybe a foot and a half to two.  Seems like yesterday's rain spiked the stone a bit, but looking at the charts, it is back on its way down.  Between 40 mph gusts a slung a streamer close to the rip rap but didn't move a thing.  Chalk another one up for paying my dues I guess.  I did see some caddis eggs under the few rocks I turned.  Nothing crazy, just globs or 4 or 5 or so here and there.  The only consistent activity I saw were birds picking bugs off the surface.  They were prowling along the rip rap to stay out of the heavy wind.  At first I was excited, thinking that baetis were coming off, but after looking more closely they were eating midges.  I don't have much hope for tomorrow, but with the Stone you never know... 

Sharpen up those size twos and one oughts - the streamer fishing is looking awfully good this week!  This nasty forecast was the exact kind of weather when we nailed the big ones last year.  The time to dead drift a sculpin is well behind us now, I'd go straight into your bugger barn and take out whatever looks like a slightly malnourished, winter withered rainbow or brown and tie it on with 02x!   The visibility hasn't gotten much better from yesterday, but is still between 2 and 3 feet of visibility - perfect for big fish hunting.  Slap the banks hard and make your fly look like lame lamb in the flock...