Well...

[MattyFlavor]

Being as inexperienced as I am it's always a bit frustrating when the first tiny window of opportunity to get the line wet comes up empty.

I hit the McKenzie after work and came home with not much to tell, other than I had a nice visit with a great blue heron; I watched two other anglers on the same stretch each pull in fish right below me; I made the mistake of fishing dries without risers and only having a short supply of nymphs... well guess what happened... the one hit I had was on the nymph and I had way, way, way too much slack as I was futzing around and bam, as fast as that it was gone and so was my nymph.
I also stood in a mad hatch right after the sun went down... I don't know what it was, but the fish weren't rising up for them anyways. So I am hoping someone here can help me learn what these smooth yellow insects were that surrounded me. I have done a pretty light search and came up with this guy (yellow stone fly) being the closest I could find:
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~dmason/Mckenzie/scans/bugs-tweaked/isoperl3a.jpg

I don't think this was exactly it though, the legs were much more tucked under the body than this picture. Anyways, being there in the hatch was pretty cool. Any other ideas or insights? :shrug:

Man, I hope I can get out again soon! :nerd:

[lilnorthfork]

I think the McKenzie gets quite a few yellow mayflies... yellow quills, giant yellow mayflies, or yellow sallies. If that is what you saw, you might try something like...
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/2754yellow_mayfly_copy.jpg

btw, the slacklinefutz is a very effective technique for hooking fish... you will learn to use it to your advantage. :wink: lnf

[Steve L.]

You maight want to check out one of the kaufmanns stimulator patterns. I've had good luck with them when big caddis or mayfly were the ticket and I didn't have anything that really matched the hatch well.

[sped]

Don't give up dude......get back there asap.......caught 15 stripers in the Merrrimack last week....it's on here......Sped

[MacFish]

Most of the time I fish a #12 elk hair caddis on both my main and dropper and do well, caddis are so prevalent they always seem to be on the menu. The most important technique I've learned is the refloat and cloudy days are better than sunny.