Fishies and Freshies

I had a quick minute to hit some water. With the lady and little man in tow we set out and began walking the banks. I was setup with a beefy streamer and ready to find a hog. The water winded through some fields and at first I wasn't really seeing much great water. It was all shallow and flat. Finally, we came to a deep bend that looked promising.

I got in position to make my cast - I knew that on this slow quiet water I wouldn't get many chances to slam a big nasty bug down. The fly splatted on the edge of the far bank and I began stripping it back. As my fly came into view in the slow deep of the bend I saw that it was being followed by a nice fish. I sat in suspense and after the next strip I saw the white of his mouth engulf my fly. I set the hook and the game was on. As he flashed and fought he had so much color I thought it was a tiger trout, but as we got it into the net I saw that it was a nice bow. The sun was low in the sky and gave us some nice light for a couple shots before we headed home. Nice little quickie seek and destroy mission!

After a week of pure sweetness we were down to our last day. We traveled back to "Jurassic Lake - the place that had shown me the biggest bow of my life. I was stoked. We wouldn't have all day to fish it, but much of the evening - which we hoped would offer us the best fishing. Jurassic was void of people and we began fishing where we had picked up fish the time before. Occasional risers helped us narrow down the active fish. Derek picked up the first. It was a super dark colored male. Then later he hooked into another that felt much bigger. It took him in some weeds and busted him off. After Derek saw some action I hooked up with a beast! It jumped after the hookset and I saw a bow that again had to be one of the biggest trout I'd ever seen. I played him in close and unsuccessfully avoided a large mass of weeds. He got stuck then busted my 3x tippet like it was nothing. Dangit! That's it. I subscribe to the theory that fisherman can fish larger tippet size than they usually do. I believe the main concern that one should consider is that of drag and your fly moving naturally and NOT that the fish is going to see your line and shy away from your fly because of it. After breaking off what would have been a great fish I clipped my tippet and tied on some 0x. This should be interesting. If I could pick up a fish using 0x tippet under an indicator with a size 12 hook then that would be more personal confirmation to this theory.

We moved to another spot. After some moving around and variation in methods we found ourselves fishing in a small sharp bend in the lake. There was a good chop on the water blowing my bugs right back toward me. My indicator drifted towards me and about fifteen feet out it slowly tanked. I set the hook and felt a strong pull. Dang man, I had another really nice fish on. When Derek netted it I was astonished by its size. It was much bigger than I expected. After carefully taping the beast it came out to be one inch longer and about a half inch bigger around than the big female that started out the trip.

After releasing the fish I had an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. I couldn't have asked or hoped for a better trip. Starting it off with the biggest trout of my life and ending it with one that was even bigger. In between were many memories of other beautiful fish and beautiful places. We walked back to the car with a gorgeous sunset overhead and felt full of gratitude for the lives we lead that allow us to take this time and enjoy such beautiful moments. Life is good.