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| My biggest rainbow trout, and my biggest trout on the fly rod. Didn't measure, but the white ring before my first stripping guide, "the hero mark," is 20 inches from the rod butt. |
Since I knew I wasn't fishing opening day due to some weekend travelling, I made a plan to fish today with Kenny and my dad. Well, my dad needed to call and wait for a roofer after the high winds blew shingles off the house over the weekend, so that left me and Kenny. We decided to meet around 7 AM at a local stretch of the creek. The plan was to fly fish and hope that some of the ever-dwindling population of trout the PFBC stocks here locally survived the weekend.
It was a tough start.
We both went fishless for the first hour or more, although we did spend
needless time trying to get a big palomino to hit something, anything. Despite the warm air temps, which were in the
60’s, the water was still cold, and fish were acting like it was winter. I had the same experience the previous
Friday. Fish were hugging the bottom and
not moving much to investigate a fly.
Kenny was not having a good morning with the long rod, so he
walked back to his truck to get the spinning setup. I considered joining him, but I was convinced
that the fish weren’t in chasing mood, so tossing a crankbait wasn’t going to
change my luck. We started seeing some
fish, finally, so that buoyed my confidence again, but even at a choice hole, I
could get no love on anything I was throwing. I started the day with green weenies, then
swung a black bugger in the deepest water we could find. Nothing happening.
After seeing signs of life, we fished the most promising
looking spot for another 20 minutes with no takers. Just when we were about to quit and drive to
another section of the creek, Kenny got one on a spinner. He remarked that it was almost on the bottom,
and a light went off. Duh, how about
fishing as deep as possible with the nymph set up? Sometimes I get stupid and lazy on these slow
mornings. Waking up, I put a jigged
pheasant tail on, added a couple more split shot, and adjusted the indicator
for the hundredth time. After not so
subtly making a cast into Kenny’s lucky pocket, finally, I too had my first
fish of the day, a decent bow. Whew…
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| First of the day: monkey off my back. |
I put another cast back in the same pocket, and the
indicator went down. I set the hook, and
I knew I had a good fish, but I didn't know how good until he made his first
run to the very back of a rather large hole.
The drag was singing! The Wissy
water is not the clearest water, so I barely caught glimpses of what I had hooked. At one point, I wondered aloud to Ken if I
had a sucker or a bass on. But I got him
in close once and saw it was a good trout, only to have him take another long
run. It was fun, but I wanted to get my
hands on this fish! Neither Kenny nor I
had a net with us, and I needed to stay mid-stream to avoid the fish getting
into logs and rock piles downstream and behind us, so I just patiently fought
what ended up being a monster of a rainbow.
I have caught big trout before, but I was pretty sure this was the
biggest rainbow I had ever caught, at least in girth and weight! I finally got my hands on him, lipping him
with one hand and cradling him with the other, Kenny acting as photographer. I popped the nymph out, smiled for the camera
(sort of) and let the fish go. He was
still pretty green and healthy, so I hope he can be someone else’s trophy too
this season. Of course, Kenny and I
started sending the pic out to all our friends and family who were
working on this lovely Monday! That’s how it’s done, you know.
We fished for a bit more, with not a touch, so I walked back
to the parking area with Kenny and debated quitting on a high note. He was lured home by the promise of fresh baked cookies at home (unless that's some kind of code he has with his wife). It was still
early, so I stayed dressed and investigated one last spot. Parking here, I expected it to be crowded,
and it was. There were not only
fishermen, but a lot of folks just enjoying the beautiful Easter Monday
holiday. I found a nice hole unoccupied
by fellow fishermen, and managed one more rainbow on the jigged pheasant tail.
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| Another spot and another fish, but a very slow day overall. |
A couple fork-stickers walked in behind me and set up at the tail of the pool where I was fishing, and small groups were moving around
all over the creek. Everywhere I looked
there were fishermen, basically, so I quit on a minor high note and started
answering my texts and phone calls about the fish…
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