I look forward to ladies day each year on a lesser known fishery. The ladies include Granny and our friend Jessica Chitwood. Last year we fished the Sveum River which gets little pressure yet actually produced a few good fish for us. Today we gambled on the Rizzo.
The ladies enjoy this day because they are both buried in the summer retail madness of Jackson Hole. They use today to get away from it all and therefore prefer a float down a river that gets little traffic. It doesn’t matter how good the fishing is. All they want is a nice float and some nice weather along with food and a few tasty beverages. The fish are a bonus.
The only hardship the girls had today was that I got them up early. Granny and I met Jessica shortly after 6 AM. I called it early because not only was it predicted to be extremely hot but we also had a long drive from Victor. When we arrived at the boat ramp there were PMD’s hatching and a few small fish on them.
The girls fished energetically and well. I always make them catch a handful of fish before their first break and today they had fifteen or so to the boat in the first hour. None of these fish were big fish but we didn’t expect big fish. The Rizzo is a brook trout fishery with the occasional small rainbow or cutty. But these trout love dry flies whether you match the hatch with a thorax PMD or twitch a Chernobyl or hopper.
I rarely keep track of the numbers of fish caught, at least when they’re small. But today keeping track was fun just to try and reach a big number. The ladies landed 47 fish all on dry flies! Most were brook trout and rainbows with one 16” cutthroat. Jessica even landed a dace of some sort – he was a massive 2”.
You certainly don’t need big fish to make a great fishing day. And in fact today I enjoyed rowing all day over the fishing. The ladies had such a great time. Good food, good beverage, good swimming, and good weather – perhaps we should have ladies day again next week!
yes! Ladies day again next week!!!
Anyone can cast to a 20” trout, but it takes a seriously accurate cast to hit the pocket of a 2” fish.