Another trip, another report

I Think I Soiled Myself (more pics on the AJF blog)

I awoke to the sound of rain hitting the roof. A relentless pattering that made my eyelids heavy as sleep tried to tug me back to an unconscious state. It would have been easy to stay too, my bed was warm, like putting on jeans right out of the dryer. Starting to drift back to sleep a little thought in my brain took root. As it grew, I slowly began to emerge from a foggy sleep enriched state of mind to the crystal clear realization that it was Saturday and I was going trout fishing!

What is it about fishing that will make a select few brave what most people would categorize as terrible weather for a chance to catch a fish? Truth be told, it excites me to fish in the rain. In fact most days I would prefer it. There is something magical about standing in a steady rain, knee deep in a brown trout stream, with an ultra-light spinning rod or fly rod with a large streamer tied on the end of 5X tippet. Oh the possibilities! (Insert mad scientist laugh here – “Wahahaha!”)

While driving to my destination it did not take long for the wet dirt roads to inflict their will upon my clean Silverado. In the words of my nine year old little girl, “Oh, Dad, your truck is DIRTY!” A dirty truck, if you ask me, is well worth the price of admission, especially when the stream is all yours and yours alone. Putting on my gear, trying to stay as dry as possible, I noticed one other truck parked well away from the stream. I was confident that the owners of the truck were either deer hunters or bird hunters. Since this time of year it is not uncommon to encounter hunters in the woods I wear a bright yellow Nike ball hat. Today however it was covered up by the hood of my raincoat. Not fifteen minutes into my fishing trip, and my first brown trout, I heard the loud crack of a shotgun that was to close for comfort as a bird flew over the river directly in front of me. I damn near dropped my rod in the water and lost all control of bodily function as I whipped the hood off my head exposing my yellow cap. Within a few moments I was talking to a hunter about the bird he just missed and the human he almost got. We laughed it off as best we could while his dog inspected my brown trout.

The river was rising and the brown trout were more than eager to participate. Within the first hour of fishing I battled several brown trout over thirteen inches with the largest approaching eighteen inches. All the larger fish got the better of me however.

As the day was drawing to a close I finished at a large pool that appeared deep enough to lose a small car in. I stood silently, letting the rain wash down my raincoat and over my hands. It felt cold. My fingers, after spending several hours in the rain, were wrinkled like the texture of prunes. Silently I stood, watching. Off to my right, in my peripheral vision, a fish porpoised creating a seam in the current. I quickly cast in its direction. I was rewarded with a fat thirteen inch brown trout. Standing silently once again, the trout returned to the water, I watched. Upstream another fish porpoised, giving itself away. One cast later I was holding a fourteen inch brown trout. “Time to go Ryan,” I thought. “Just one more cast,” I answered back. Casting to the head of the large pool I retrieve my spinner slowly. The blade fluttered somewhere deep in the hole, then stopped. There was an immediate weight at the end of my line and I set the hook. The fish exploded out of the water and into the air, then falling back twisting and contorting like Greg Louganis off of a high dive. After an epic battle and a quick picture I returned the seventeen inch brown trout to where it had come from. It was time to go. As I stepped out of the stream I smiled to myself thinking, “Three fish thirteen inches or bigger in three casts. Just another day in paradise!”

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Proof that Foul Weather can often produce Fair fishing. Nice Read Thanks for the trip. Jax

Storyteller! I wondered where you were going with that report, especially at the beginning! But turned out a cracking report and photos!! Well done Soup-mix.

sounds like a good day. thanks for sharing the story!