When I go fishing I usually take along a nymph net made of some screen door material attached to two handles. You hold this down vertically on the bottom of the river while you kick around some rocks upstream. When you pull the net up you will find a sample of the type of bugs that live in the river. In a rich river like the Yakima, there will be a lot of bugs. Those small black, brown and green slimy things are what the fish are eating, and what you are trying to imitate. You don't have to tie those perfect flies like you see at the fly shop; almost anyone can tie something that looks like the nymphs in the net. If it is messy and the right size and color, and you put it in front of a fish, the fish will probably try to eat it.

One type of fly I have become a believer in, is the soft hackle. I think that you can make almost any nymph better by adding a soft hackle to it. Soft hackle flies are an ancient invention and modern flyfishermen don't often use them. My experience with them has been very satisfactory. I use them a lot. You wont find many soft hackled flies available for sale, so you pretty much have to tie your own. I think the undulating movement of the soft hackle makes the fly look alive to the fish. A soft hackle is tied with soft webby feathers, not the stiff feathers used for dry flies. You can use any of a wide variety of feathers for soft hackles. The most common soft hackle feather is the partridge. If you can find the right size of feather for the fly you are tying, it is hard to go wrong with partridge. These feathers tend to be variegated and range from gray to brown (good bug colors).

This month we have had some unbelievably good days fishing deep with stonefly nymphs and a smaller dropper. We didn't catch lots of fish, but the ones we caught were big. Nymph fishing with stoneflies and smaller bead heads should continue to be good until the Skawala's, March Browns and Blue Winged Olives start hatching later in March and April.