Boooo. Yaaaaaaaaay!!

After a few weeks of not fishing, I headed south and met up with Andrew D. to fish for a few days. Monday was brutal, we fished hard in off-color conditions all day and came back with only a small bow and a whitey to show for it. For an area reputed to hold big browns, we didn't see anything to excite us. There was even a good midge hatch going and no signs of fish. Disheartened, we decided to change up the game plan and switch rivers Tuesday. It turned out to be a great idea and we spent the entire day on a stretch less than a mile long. Throwing nymphs and leeches was the ticket and within ten minutes of hitting the river the first big brown came in, followed by several more hard-fighting cuts, browns, and bows of good size. Actually, one cut caught twice on different flies which fought harder the second time. The water temp was in the mid forties all day and it seemed to be about right to get the fish out of slow mode. The whiteys seemed to be in a frenzy as well and couldn't keep off our flies, so much so that nearly every cast brought one in. Oddly enough, the whiteys may have made the day because we were catching so many that the entire time fishing we were cracking up at the absurdity and every few minutes one of us would hook something else. The action stayed on nymphs throughout the day and although some errant BWO's were in the air we saw only a few scattered rises and didn't bother with dries. This was certainly not the creep around in the bushes and stalk fish kind of day that is typical on this river. When the last big brown came in around 6, we decided to pack it in and go get a cold one, satisfied with our comeback from the serious ass kicking we took the previous day. And to add to how good it was, Andrew lost his net at some point and received a call a few hours later from some dude who found it. He said he'd found "one of them trout scoopin nets." I'm not kidding. I may have to put a sign up in the shop that says "Trout Scoopin Nets".