A new friend of mine had been trying to get me to go with him to his secret rainbow spot for several weeks now. I knew it was a decent drive to get there, and a whole day would be necessary to fish it properly. Between school, work and my wife, it was difficult to find a time to do this, but on Friday the planets aligned, and we finally found ourselves at our destination.
I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical. Things started off slowly, but as we worked our way upstream, I became a believer.
Things just continued to get better and better.
There were swarms of midges coming off, but I felt it would be hard to entice them to take a midge imitation with all the naturals on the water. I noted that blue wing olives and some caddis were coming off as well, so decided to go with something that would imitate either of these. I used a generic little fly that I made up last November that takes attributes from the Prince Nymph, Copper John and Hare's Ear. I ended up catching most of the fish on this in various colors in a size 16. Darker colors definitely worked better. I also tried a size 18 bwo emerger, and had a lot of strikes on this, but fewer hookups. I caught a couple throwing a size 8 blood colored mohair leech on my 6wt as well, and one colorful little male on a Gummy Egg. I used my new 4wt for the most part, and I had quite the battles. Some of them were pushing ten minutes and full of spectacular leaps. It had been a while since I had to put a fish on the reel, and some of these guys got me to my backing. Sadly I lost a couple that were 20+ inches. On the first of these, the hook pulled free after a 10 minute battle. I had the net ready to land the fish several times, when it would take off again. The other was really large, and really colorful, but he just rolled on the surface on the hook set and came undone. Still, I can't complain. I caught many in the 17-19" range, they fought like mad, and had beautiful colors to boot. The scenery wasn't too shabby either.
Unfortunately, I have been sworn to secrecy so I cannot divulge the location of this river. However, it is extremely dangerous there. The place is swarming with sasquatch, grizzly bears, cougars, and ligers. Not only that, but the Mexican Drug Cartel and the Russian Mafia are known to frequent the area. I was lucky to escape with my life this time, but return ventures may be risky.
Total for trip: 39 rainbows and cuttbows
Total for year: 148 fish
Secret spot or not, I have to hand it to you. Those are some terrific looking Rainbows you brought to net there. Days like this are what fishing dreams are made of. Sweet dreams!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I have to agree, I keep scrolling through the pics, remembering the trip. The only bad thing is that trips like that make the ordinary days seem a bit less exciting.
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