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| Exact location of my assault |
It's always nice to see a griz from a safe distance.
Got to the stream and once again she wasn't cheating on me. I'm sure that I'll break down and cry when I finally show up and either she's hosting other lovers or she just stops producing for me. That day is coming (at least the day when she stops being so productive) but it wasn't yesterday. Fishing was outstanding again and I had a fantastic day of fishing all by myself. I didn't bother counting fish, but I'm sure I landed no less than 30 fish.
Fishing got to be so easy that I started to feel like I was bullying the weak kid. Of course the fishing universe has a way of evening things out when we get too cocksure. At the next piece of good water I land a couple of average Rainbows in the 16-18" class. I make a cast to the head of the run/bend (to the left of the water pictured) and hook up with a freight train that heads down stream towards a huge undercut that has some debris that has already eaten a few of my flies. The fish rockets out of the water and shows itself to be no less than 20". It happened so quickly I can't say for certain if it was a Brown or Rainbow...I think it was actually a Rainbow. I tried my best to get it out of that area and had my rod doubled over. It was still doubled over but there was no longer any movement. I give it a tug and pull up a branch. The fish had got into the debris and the second fly had caught the branch providing for the fish to get off. Barbless hooks will do that, of course if it were barbed it likely would have been able to break itself off in the same scenario anyway.
As you can see in the picture the water is moving at a good clip in front of me but there is a back eddy on the far side under the willow. I make a few casts into the back eddy but it is difficult to get any sort of drift. I decide to go for it and put my flies into the willow and try pulling them back to drop right under it. This is one of these casts that your expectation is either your flies can't be pulled out of the willow and you have to break them off, or you drop your bugs into the path of the best fish in the area as the water under the willow in the back eddy provides a conveyor belt of food and the ultimate protection from predators. I hit the willow, pull the flies back and they drop right in, I lift as much line off the fast water as possible and get a couple of seconds of drag free drift. The fish takes and I set the hook. Out of the water flies a huge Brown. As I've landed a couple in the 4-5lb class lately I'll say it was every bit of that size. If I had to guess I'd say it probably was 23-24" and closer to 6 lbs but since he robbed me I'll never know. As he flew out of the water out came my flies and the screaming began.
I guess I should be satisfied to have hooked up on a fish that 99% of anglers could never touch. Fishing barbless hooks gives a big advantage to a fish that can rocket out of the water 2' and shake it's head, so again I should probably be pleased that I did all I could and the fish was just better than me. There isn't a damn thing I could have done differently, there isn't one mistake I made. However, I'm not satisfied and I'm not pleased. In fact I laid in bed thinking about that fish last night. I'm contemplating how I might get him to take again. I don't doubt he'll be in that spot but I do doubt he'll take any flies resembling what I hooked him with. Perhaps a mouse pattern...or perhaps I hike my ass up to see him in a month with a hopper....if that doesn't work I'll have to make a hike in the fall and pitch a streamer under that willow for him.
As bummed as I am that I couldn't land what was a world class Brown, I can't complain as I've hooked up on more world class Browns on this creek in the past 2 weeks than I might see the rest of the summer. Best of all, it remains the best kept secret around and is all mine.
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