Trip Report: Shivering Trout

I didn't expect to get out fishing this week but after working a bunch of hours in a short time I found myself with three hours to do with what I pleased. Of course I went fishing!!! I arrived stream side by 1pm and took a short hike before wetting my line. I tied on a pink squirrel of prey, set the indicator deep, and dredged the bottom of a long, deep pool.

 These respectable browns subtly nibbled my fly. I set the hook unsure whether I was going to snag on the bottom, pull my fly rig into the trees behind me, or battle a trout. Eventually I lost the only pink squirrel of prey in my box. I switched over to a fatboy pheasant tail with a pink butt.

 Shortly after moving upstream I hooked into a really nice trout. I never got eyes on it but he ran hard upstream before snapping my 4x tippet. I'll be back for him.

This big guy fought hard but was not match for the 5 wt. It's amazing how my hand held fish look a lot smaller than when they are laid on the net! Judging by the size of my net this trout appears to be around 16 inches. When I arrived temperatures read just shy of 60. I decided to wet wade and at this point the only thing keeping my on the stream was the great fishing. After 3 o'clock the wind really picked up and I started to regret dressing light.

After a bit I tied on a soft hackle pheasant tail dropper. This guy barely moved the indicator but put up a great fight. He was pretty close to the same size as the trout pictured above. When I moved to unhook him I found that he was barely hooked. After catching a few more on the pt dropper I switched to a san juan worm dropper.

 This buttery brown is developing a nice kype (curved jaw). He put up a great fight, darting into weeds and around a submerged log, but came to net after being skated over a patch of weeds standing between shore and good holding water.

I caught a flurry of smaller trout and this decent fella on the san juan worm before action shut down. By this time I had to get going. After all was said and done I caught at least 30 trout with most measuring between 13-15 inches! Fish were hungry for whatever drifted their way and colored up really well for the spawn. I won't be able to fish at all this weekend but I'll have a few days later next week to chase 'em.