It's true that you never find the same river and the river never bathes the same long rodder. Paul, James, Henry and I slid into the warm lick of the South Fork in what seemed like ideal conditions then struggled to match our
catch-rate from previous adventures in these fine waters. Our history of extraordinary success on this slice of the river makes 'normal' days seem like lean times. This trip was highlighted by Henry's broad smile as he
tested the standing/stability of his new JK Mayfly kayak. We all hoped he'd have a learning curve and take a YouTube-worthy fall, but the mayfly was stable and combined with Henry's agility we were robbed of any yard sale
memories. I picked up smallies on my H Fork 5wt with both golden retrievers and small tubes presented with a 1/32oz jig head, but the strike rate was low. In retrospect my streamer, stripping and swinging, tactics
didn't allow my offerings to get deep enough in the water column as the fish were laying deep below the 80 degree current layer. As Paul, James and I were eating lunch and lamenting our low catches Henry arrived from upstream
beaming..."Hey mates how're ya doing? I just had the most amazing time!" He'd adapted and introduced heavily weighted offerings on long leaders to cut/sink through the current and meet the bass in the deeper holes and runs
and had been hooking good sized bass every other cast. We all more or less adopted his tactics and when we got to the next section that offered deeper waters we met with increased success.
At the end, life is but a collection of memories, find your river and make some.
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