The hot humid August weather finally broke a bit and on the spur of the moment, Neil and I headed up to Verdigre creek to try our hands at hopper fishing over the weekend. You think about hopper fishing and you think about splatting big flies on the water, and explosive attacks by the fish. It can be a thrill. We were ready with twin cane rods (both Driggs Rivers), multiple fly patterns, and a neat little smoker, just in case we caught lunch on time.

Being a small spring creek running through grassy meadows, Verdigre would seem to be a great candidate for hopper fishing if the hoppers are out. And they were, dozens flying at every step though the trail grass. Sneaking up on the stream, a person could see pods of fish in certain places, and in some of those places, it was even possible to thread a cast between stands of grass onto the water. Artificial hoppers, though, as it turned out, were not on the menu. You get an idea of how hopper fishing is going to be when you creep through the grass and flush live hoppers into the creek. Then the big juicy bugs slowly frog-kick their way across the stream, right over top of the trout, sending out little wakes at each kick that say "Here I am! Eat me!" And the fish stay glued to the bottom.

When the fish won’t eat the real thing, what chance does your imitation have?

Neil managed to catch lunch on a woven-body drowned-hopper pattern but my high-floaters drew nothing but disdain.

What DID work were dark woolly buggers stripped upstream under cut-away banks and big clumps of grass hanging over the stream. I caught my share that way, and Neil twice had 3X tippet broken off on the initial strike, by something bigger than the calibrated 11-inch stockers.

My favorite fish of the weekend turned out to be hiding under a weedbed, onto which I unintentionally cast my hopper-dropper rig. The hopper hung up on the weeds, but the dropper must have been dangling underneath. When I tugged to free the rig, the fish obligingly came out and slammed the dropper nymph, thus freeing my dry from the weeds. Thank you very much!

Lee