The Quartz is Strong in this One

Two trips to Quartz Creek, two days of tearing out my shoulder.  I went down Tuesday with the intention of overnighting and possibly hitting the Russian.  The fishing was good enough on the stream that cemented my flyfishing nearly seven years ago that I was satisfied by early evening.  Washed out red-ish 8 mil beads did pretty well on the dollies.  Reds were stacked in the creek pretty thick, with most of them hanging out in swift, shallow runs, some of them already doing the spawn huckle-buck.  I picked up a few dollies in the shallows, but the majority (and the largest) were found in deeper, slightly slower water.  Tuesday, I likely landed ten or so in a couple of hours, but lost just as many.  The largest was prolly 17-18″, and that was good enough for me.  On Sunday (during the summers, AWC holds service on Wednesdays) evening, I headed down again under the ruse that I had to get up early in Seward for a halibut charter.  So I fished Quartz Sunday evening for another couple of hours.  Despite the weekend warriors stepping heavily on the dollies and rainbows, apparently by the end of the weekend, they weren’t all full.  Again, the same 8 mil worked for a while, and I landed a few dollies around 20″ and a nice 18″ bow.  The bite eventually turned off for a few minutes, and it took a while to find the right bead again.  After several colors and sizes (along with an assortment of flesh) I finally found another producer.  Bold, bright, fresh orange 6 mils brought the bite back on, and I nailed several more large dollies before calling it quits.  At the right time of year, Quartz rarely disappoints.  Though it does happen, if one is patient and waits until at least the second week of August, its tough not to catch fish.  One of my favorite confidence-builders came through again this year, as expected.