Cutty Redemption

Ok, so after trashing Cuts all day Monday and Tuesday, I stand corrected and hereby apologize to the Snake River Cutthroat for being so down on them. I headed down the canyon today and brought the 7wt. to get out to a riffle that I couldn't reach last time with the 3wt. As before, fish were bouncing all over slamming midges. Two absurdly long casts (and one very frustrating tree snag) into the far riffle and I watch the indicator jump sideways and disappear. I set the hook and discover that pigs can fly. This girl jumped three times before coming in. Figuring the fish was securely hooked, I grabbed the camera and went for the underwater shot. It's a lot easier to do this when you don't have a bouncing rod in the other hand, as I found out. I was only able to get one halfway distinguishable shot of her before I gave up and figured I better land the fish before she got off. She measured just shy of twenty two and was lean and mean. I don't normally measure but figured this one was worth it. A few minutes after releasing her the wind and snow picked up and it got noticeably colder. I figured I wasn't going to top that and packed it in. So accept this as my apology, cutties everywhere, and kindly keep eating my flies.

Upper Green Overnight

In the past two days Josh Graffam, Andrew D. and myself headed into the upper Green to check out open water caused by a hot spring flowing into the river. We skiid in and set up camp under bluebird skies and hit the river around noon. Between the three of us we caught a lot of browns and bows in the 10-16" range using mostly nymphs. Josh got one cutty on Monday. Princes and San Juans seemed to be the ticket. Andrew got the largest of the trip with a nice bow late Monday as it was getting dark. This morning we set out with temps in the high 30's. Josh and Andew both headed downstream of camp and pulled some decent fish each. I headed upstream to fish the inlet of the spring and fished anything that looked good on the way up, pulling a fish or two out of each hole, but not the monster I was looking for. I was able to pull eight small fish from the inlet area before the wind picked up and made casting a bit of a chore. None of us pulled any pigs but we had a great time nonetheless. It was really nice to get away from the Snake and hook into some fish that actually try to get away. I'll take a 10 inch bow or brown over a 16" Snake River Cut any day.