Went to a river with a couple of friends today for a quick trip. The plan was to meet up at 0530 and head out from there. My alarm went off at 0445, I must have turned it off in my sleep as I woke at 0513. After my brain turned on and I realized what time it was, I got ready as fast as possible and left. Looking at the time as I left, I knew there was no way that I could make the 15 minute drive in 8 minutes. I shot a text out letting Jeff know I was running about 7 minutes late. Once there we got the vehicle loaded and took off.
As we drove out there, I realized that I had forgotten something else. As we were fishing out of state, I neglected to purchase a license. The two stores that sell them were not open yet, I decided to get on my phone and make the purchase online. I wouldn’t be able to print a paper copy but at least I was able to save it as a pdf on my phone. After some **** from the guys about it, we were on our way.
Once at the river, we headed down to the water. I have not fished this place all year and was curious to see if it had changed any.
A made a couple of casts and nothing, my third cast however, found the mark. A short while later the skunk was off for me. I netted the fish and released him back and went back to fishing. Not long after the next fish came to hand. I snapped a couple quick shots and sent him on his way.
A little while after releasing the second one, the fish in the river began feeding very actively. I was able to pick up quite a few more during this time and took pics of some of them. I even managed a not too common for this river rainbow although it was on the small side.
Larry had been working his way towards the area I was fishing. Once he was in earshot he said that he had picked up quite a few on dries. I decided to switch up and work the water below. Jeff switched as well and managed to pick up a nice fish, I was too far away to get any type of picture. At first, the actively feeding fish wanted nothing to do with my offering. Once I figured out what they wanted the story did not get much better. I made a cast and a perfect drift to an actively feeding fish. The fish rose and took my fly. Unfortunately I failed to connect with the hookset, I repeated this failure to seal the deal four more times in a row. I thought to myself, “****, I really hate fishing size 20 dries.”
About the time of my last missed attempt, I heard “Hey, do you guys want to stop for lunch?” I Wound in and headed back. After the lunch and beer, it was time to go back. Not sure what happened after lunch but none of the three of us got anything else. Just before 1600 it was decided to call it. I waded back towards where we were parked, I saw another fishermen trying his luck, although it was using a different method.
Once back, we got all packed up and headed out, I grabbed a few more shots of the area and we headed out.
Despite the nonproductive second half of the day, I had a great time. Living so close to this river, it is easy to take it for granted sometimes.
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:42 pm • 
