Current River, 8/16

I fished with "The Hen" on Sunday. He almost ditched me. He was supposed to be at my house by 5 am. I was up and ready but he was not picking up his cell. I was pissed and left the house without him. He's lucky I stopped at the QT by my house for a coffee. As I was walking in, he called alerting me that he was awake and ready to fish. I was a little pissed that we had to waste 45 minutes on the front end of the trip, but it turned out to be a great day on the water. He also had a decent excuse for being late, although I probably shouldn't mention it on the web.

We got to the river around 8. Conditions were money! I can't believe how many fish are in the river right now. I also can't believe how fat all of the fish are. Just about every fish we caught had a swollen belly. I don't know if it's because the river is higher and healthier than normal, or if it's because the park is being heavily fished and lots of guts are drifting down stream for the fish to munch on. I would like to believe it's the former, more natural reason, but either way, I love it.

The Hen and I did pretty well, although Henry needs to work on line control and LANDING FISH. Seriously, he stuck a bunch but could not get them in hand.

The fish of the day was a pig brownie, but she required a lot of patience. I spotted her first thing in the morning in a shallow riffle. I fished to her for an hour or so but couldn't get her to budge. I'll bet I showed her 20 different flies on 7X tippet but she wouldn't move.

I finally gave up, and Henry and I fished downstream sticking some nice rainbows. For some reason the browns were being a little pickier. At about 3, we headed back up to our original position. I wanted a second shot at that porker that I stood in front of all morning.

We got back to the spot, and sure enough, that beauty was in the same little slot in the riffle. Unfortunately, I was met with the same reaction. I tried fly after fly and and she didn't budge.

Eventually, I decided to try some big dries. Hoppers didn't work, stimis didn't work, neither did a size 10 caddis. The first fly that enticed a reaction was a Chernobyl ant. She came up off the bottom for a look and a chase, but did not eat. This at least kept my interest. After the ant, I decided to go subsurface and tied on a big stone fly pattern. After two drifts, she ate. I fought her for about 15 seconds and she threw the fly. I thought she was done for the day but, despite the fact that she had been stuck, she moved right back to her comfortable spot in the riffle and seemed to relax again. I walked away for about twenty minutes to let her cool off and returned again with the same fly. The first cast she ate again. I yelled down to Henry to come grab the net which was sitting on the bank behind me. He causually strolled up and scooped her:



She was a dandy. Right at 20 inches but had some serious girth. My uneducated guess was around 5.5 lbs. Awesome fish and a great reward after working so hard for her. I'm headed back this Sunday. I hope she's still sitting there.