The Big Hole is a fast flowing, freestone river with riffles, glides and charges between steep canyon walls, offering a lively habitat for rainbows, browns and the indigenous whitefish (a grayling look-alike without the sail dorsal fin).  In general the fish are smaller, though there are some huge ones that can be tempted, especially on large streamers.  I started by fishing two dries, one attached to the bend of the other by a yard of nylon. What surprised me was not the technique, but the flies themselves.  You have to see a “Parachute Madam X” to understand this. It is huge.  In the UK, we consider a crane fly/daddy-long legs to be a large mouthful, but you should see the (grass) hopper flies out west.  They are great big juicy representatives  of the natural – big and brawny, their legs almost kicking in the stream.  They are easy to see and evidently very attractive to the fish below in the  back end of the season when the naturals are out.On the Beaverhead in September we concentrated on nymphs, and I soon realized that the tighter I cast into the bank, the more fat-ties came out for lunch.  The rig was a shock- a bright red yarn strike indicator, split shot and two nymphs, barbless size twenties, on 5x fine nylon. < previous - next >