The Firehole in August

It's not every year that the Firehole is a viable fishing option come August, but 2011 is one of them.  There is water aplenty in the river and the temperatures aren't yet excessive.  Fish it early and late in the day with caddis, damselflies, and terrrestrials.  This photo was taken a few days ago below Midway Geyser Basin.  

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Notes on Two Fly Lines

In a previous blog post on fly lines, I mentioned that I was just beginning an evaluation of an Airflo Ridge Line—Tactical. Here is my assessment of that line, as well as some early thoughts on the Scientific Anglers XPS line.

I began using the Airflo line in April, when winter still prevailed in these parts. Right out of the package this line exhibited serious memory. It was akin to coiled spring steel, which made for poor handling.  It also twisted severely during casting. The net result of these two qualities was one line tangle after another. That's unacceptable. (The Airflo website claims this is a very supple line, which made me wonder if I did indeed receive the right line. Assuming I did, I sure don’t want any part of a line they consider stiff.)

The taper on the Ridge Line was adequate and the line cast alright, but the ridged structure added no discernible benefit. In fact, the ridges provide more surface area on which dirt can accumulate, and the line did seem to require frequent cleaning to maintain its slipperiness.

Despite its apparent flaws, I continued fishing this line as I wanted to see if more use and warmer weather conditions would aid its performance. They did not. (To my dismay, it took until early July for warmer weather conditions to arrive, so I ended up fishing this line far longer than I would have liked.)

My summation: You can fish this line if you must, but it probably won’t be a pleasant experience. If you do use one, keep it clean.

 

For a few weeks now, I’ve been testing a Scientific Anglers XPS line. This line has been around for awhile—I fished one a number of years ago—so I was curious to see how this incarnation compared to the earlier version.

Current S.A. advertising says that this line is for “exact” presentations. I don’t know exactly what those are, but I assume they must be better than “inexact” presentations. (Actually, as I think about it, “inexact” doesn’t sound too good at all. It probably isn’t. I guess I should be glad I now have one of these lines.) S.A. also claims this line has the “lowest memory for cold water use”. Well, low memory in a fly line is an admirable quality, indeed. But it should never be limited to cold water situations. All fly lines should be low memory. Alas, that’s a topic for another post.

S.A. was right about one thing. This line is supple. Really supple. It handles beautifully—the way every fly line should. There is almost no twisting of the line during casting, and I’ve yet to experience a single tangle that wasn’t of my own making. The line casts well and shoots okay. The taper is fine, though I wish S.A. would see fit to add a little longer tip. It also feels to me that this line might actually weigh what it’s supposed to weigh (I can't locate my misplaced scale). All in all, this line is a winner—so far. Certainly it’s better than the old XPS line. In fact, I’d say it’s the best S.A. line I’ve seen in quite awhile.

Time will tell whether it remains so.

     

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Another Kind of Fish Light

Direct sunlight can make for nice fish photos, too—provided the sun isn't too high in the sky.  Early morning and late evening are excellent times to photograph fish in direct light.  At this time of day the rays of the sun are less powerful than at midday, and add a natural warmth to a photo without being overly harsh. Brown trout look particularly nice in this kind of light, especially those with strong golden and yellow tones.

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Under a Cloudy Bright Sky

For taking pictures of fish, some of the best light conditions are those provided by a cloudy bright sky.  Such a sky provides plenty of illumination for adequate exposures, but at the same time softens and diffuses direct sunlight.  This helps avoid harsh reflective highlights (often the bane of fish photographers).  This very even light also allows all the details on a fish to be captured by the camera.      

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A Foggy Morning

Some overnight rain and clearing skies served to create a bit of fog yesterday morning on Hebgen Lake.  Here's a photograph from that morning.   

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