July month, it seems, was a continuation of June month with bad weather including rain and wind keeping water levels consistently high. A couple of days saw wind speeds of 60km (37 miles) per hour making fishing a real challenge.

A huge brown drake hatch at Big Hairy on July 14 was just that, hairy! making it almost impossible for fishermen to entice trout to artificial patterns because of an abundance of available natural ones. Frustrating experiences like this often meant landings were limited to two or three fish at best. Duncan Lewis, a long-time angler at Minipi confirmed that he’s seen a hatch similar to this one several years ago at Little Minipi.

Green drakes, which for the most part is an evening hatch, popped up at Lover Boy Cove, Lily Pads, Man-a-war and West Bay. Those morsels no doubt brought brookies to the surface! According to Lee Wulff in an article written in 1969, he clearly states that those fish are conditioned to eating mayflies, giving them a football appearance. The landings during this time picked up tremendously.

This hatch acted as a somewhat silver lining as properly presented dries served as a skullduggery in fooling those squaretails to their artificial drakes, stimulators, and Wulff pattern; flies of choice which seemed to work fine for those mayflies.

Fly-outs to Little Minipi and Minipi meant a substantial increase in July landings with the river fishing at little Minipi producing 3-5 pounders with 6-7 pounders a common occurrence. Access to the Penalty Box at Minipi, after a slight drop in water levels, turned out to be a great asset.

Like last year, fishing at Halfway Outlet has been fairly good, but access to the Foam Pool has been hampered by a slow runoff – making for treacherous walking over those rocks.

With August month upon us the brookies coloration is changing to its typical crimson look, suggesting that spawning is not far away. This means only one thing: you should include bombers, muddlers, and mice in your arsenal.