"Who planted all these damn Russian Olives?"

The wind started promptly after I tied on my Letort #14, and I headed into the short microbursts that Ol’ Mama Nature occasionally gives us. The right bank, a mere 80 feet from where I stood, was my fly’s intended destination. I gave the hopper a light dusting of the fanny, and placed my left foot about half a meter ahead of my right foot, and commenced with the double-haul. Fishing a Boron IIx in the wind is truly excellent, especially with a 5-weight, even though it’s only an 8’6 rod. This green stick has just enough power to turn over large flies, even in the wind.

Within three false casts (I’m a minimalist when it comes to the threat of shoulder muscle fatigue) I had enough line and nine feet of leader to lay down Mr. Letort and try and tempt a fish to rise…

It has been just over a year from this time that I tied on what I classify to be the second most effective Caddis pattern on earth…the Palomino Caddis, tied by my friend, Cheech. With just enough material on the skybound side of the hook, this fine little artifical specimen has tricked many a wary trout in the last 365 days. It boasts a rusty cinnamon hue and a small tuft of feather that sits perfectly in the surface of the water and tempts even the cleverest brown trout. Yes, cleverest is indeed a word, for you ever-editing English nerds!

No fish this time around, leastways on this stretch of river. The Lower Ranch can be tricky, and can throw even a master angler off. And I do not consider myself a master, nor will I ever refer to myself in that light. There are far too many who have gone before, only to be outwitted by those pea-brained salmonids.
Save only the brutish Leven brown that Bobby scared up from the depths of the Mother Hole, and the ever sly trout that hit my Hemingway after a precise downstream cast just above the Forbidden Pool, our luck had run dry from the day. However, I do not remember a day that could compare in the sun’s rays, the balmy 68 degrees at 7300 ft, or the green foliage of budding Aspens and towering Ponderosas than that of yesterday, chasing trout on the South Slope.

Colorado River Cutthroat, Eastern Brookies and Browns “how do you know they’re German browns? Do they have little red swastikas?” (a joke I coined when I was 22 years old, fishin on the Logan with Dave) made the potential dinner menu, but as instructed by those wiser than us, we released all our fish, to live on and fight another day.

Perhaps I will give the Russian Olive Run another shot in a few weeks, when the stones and drakes come out to play. Until then, I can only visualize large trout bellies, bluebird skies, and enough Mountain Dew to make even a camel think twice about his next pit stop. My heart belongs to the slopes of the High Uintas, and perhaps, one day when I’m lucky, it will belong to someone very special.