%#@*! 4/4/12

I had one chance to get out this week.  Not much of an excursion, but hopefully enough to get me through the week.  Class got out at 1:20 and I had to be to work at 4.  I planned on running up Logan Canyon a short way to maximize my time, and to avoid the higher water above the dams.

Well, fate had other plans.  For some odd reason the entire contents of Old Main decided to slowly shuffle and mill about as I was trying to exit the building, and the sidewalks on the way to the bus stop weren't much better.  I arrived just as the bus pulled away, but thankfully another was approaching as the other left.  I took my seat, and waited.  Fifteen minutes later, as the last of the passengers were squeezed into the stairwell of the bus, the bus in front of us decided to do the same thing while blocking my bus.  Eventually both buses were bursting at the seams as they lumbered away from campus.  Forty minutes after my class ended, I finally reached my car.  I hurried up the canyon, only to find cars at every pull off.  I continued to ascend, and eventually found a spot at my favorite area.  I quickly re-rigged my rod and got layered up.

As I walked downstream to some interesting water I had spied from the road, I noticed that my rod looked a little shorter than usual.  It's a fairly new rod though, so I figured it was just my imagination.  I bushwhacked down to the stream, arriving on the water just as the wind hit.  Before I could even attempt a cast, my line was whisked away into some willows where it was hopelessly tangled and damaged to where I had to retie again.

As I made my first cast, things didn't seem right, and it was then that I realized that in my haste I had put the top of my 3wt onto the bottom of my 4wt.  I decided to go with it, though casting was a little awkward, especially with the wind pummeling me.  I managed to hook into a feisty brown which rocketed down stream through the fast water.  Eventually I led him back upstream to some calmer water where I could net him.

I carefully worked my way upstream through the torrent and placed a few casts into a nice pocket against the far bank.  I immediately missed a carbon copy of my first brown and had another flash on my dropper.  Up ahead the river narrowed to a churning chute and was flanked by an impenetrable wall of vegetation.  I ended up going back to the car to fix my rod mix up.

I now had about 20 minutes left to fish.  I had a decent trout suck down my dry at the tail end of a run, but for some reason the hook didn't penetrate and he was gone.  I missed another on the dropper further up the run.  The next couple of stretches I fished brought me no love.  I crossed the stream and found a nice looking run where a cutthroat was actively sipping blue wing olives.  I placed a couple of casts to him, without a single bit of interest.  A couple of his cohorts flashed at my nymph but never hooked up.  I switched to a longer dropper line and caught a whirling dervish on my first cast.

I could see a larger cutthroat up ahead rising periodically to intercept nymphs about a foot below the surface.  I cast a couple of feet above him, and was delighted to see his big snout confidently break the surface and suck in my dry.  I was even happier when the hook actually took hold.  He tried to take off downstream into the faster water, but I was able to snatch him in the net as he passed by.  This cutt had some serious shoulders with a slight hump on his back.

I could see several more good sized trout working the run, but I was pushing it with getting to work on time already, so I had to abandon the productive water just as I found it.

It was a pretty frustrating day, though watching that thick cutty come up and snarf my big attractor made things much better.

Total for trip:  1 brown, 2 cutthroat

Total for year: 175 fish