Teach the dog to Tie.

Tying some up.

I turn my back for one minute and Rua, the in-house Rhodesian Ridgeback tries to tie her own flies. Apparently she loves the chartreuse bucktail.  Her tying session was not all that successful, but every 5 years or so, I really should thin out the decades of feathers and hair that I haven't used and never will. 

     Back on track, I tied some Goddard Caddis using a video from  MidCurrent, http://midcurrent.com/videos/fly-tying/. A dab of zap-a-gap certainly simplified this complex fly. They also had a caddis emerger pattern but it called for New Zealand white wool. I guess Rua ate it, so I substituted z-ylon.

On to the Arkansas.

Ned convinced me to try upstream of Vallie Bridge on the Arkansas. 

You've always got to share the Arkansas. Rafters, fly fishers, campers, Christos  Over-The-River  (hope not), and apparently horse.

The Arkansas is fishing very, very well this year. Thanks to a mild runoff and lots of bugs last year, and a long sustained runoff this year, the fish are large, healthy, and hungry. 

Later  in a side channel above Wellsville Bridge I found this little pocket on the left,

seam in the middle,

and shelf on the right.

I couldn't seem to do anything wrong. They loved the Goddard Caddis. I caught the rainbow below, clicked and released it, flicked my fly into the water to get ready to cast and wham! This brown decided to take the caddis emerger for the first time today.

 Catch 

This net filling rainbow appears to have had a luck encounter with an eagle that just missed the mark by grabbing to far near the tail. That's why we all call it fishing.

And Release

This is my favorite part of fly fishing. The gentle below the water , stress free release.  The brown just wanders out and moseys off.

 

What worked.

The Goddard Caddis was the winner today but only after I switched to 4x. The monster takes by these large Arkansas browns broke me off before I could even set a hook. After three of these I finally changed. I'm a slow learner.