Not surprisingly, the National Weather Service forecast I checked early in the morning was not really encouraging. When it is windy, my first choice is always Dry Falls. My first cast was around 11:00 AM. I expected 12mph wind in the afternoon at Dry Falls, but the water was so calm, clear and glossy. Once in a while even the sun showed his face through clouds and the water temperature, probably 45 degrees F or so, was not really so bad. It was one of better flyfishing weathers in November.

What was missing from this cold but nice flyfishing weather was fish-rise, not to mention my flyfishing buddy not on the water. Practically, no hatches and no rises even though sporadic rises were spotted here and there once in a while. One good thing was that Dry Falls is plenty big enough for five flyfishermen including me. Based on several factors such as calm, cold water, no hatches and no rises, my fishing strategies were a realistic but meaty fly, deep water fishing, long fly line, and extremely slow circling (trolling in a large circle). My choice of fly was 12-3X Woolly Bugger with a few strands of Krystal Flash and I targeted the deepest area in the lake, ranging 20 feet to 30 feet deep. My fly was about 100 feet from me and I slow-circled, all to avoid spooking fish. Just like any other good flyfishermen, I like to develop my own fishing strategy specific for each set of fishing conditions and I enjoy most when my strategy works perfectly. Today's fishing was almost perfect. It worked well for pan-size bows but could not catch any monsters at all, not even one.

I fished from 11:00 AM till 4:00 PM and ended up landing 15+ small but fat bows ranging 8" to 13". I also lost more than a dozen of bows probably because of my poor hook-setting or soft mouth. I like to catch large bows and browns, but catching many small bows was not so bad. One positive thing is that all those small bows will be much bigger next year and they will provide many flyfishermen with exciting fights. Definitely, there is hope for Dry Falls next year.

One chironomid fisherman said that he caught 5 bows in the morning but all 5 were small. He also said that he fished Dry Falls a week ago and all bows he caught were big ranging 18" to 23". Two other pontoon-boaters around me seemed doing okay but catching small bows. For my fishing buddy and me, we caught plenty of large bows three weeks ago. Ya, where were all those monsters when we wanted to catch? Please do not tell me that I am not a good flyfisherman because I may admit it.

S Cho

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