Trip Report: Outmatched

This afternoon I rigged up the first fly rod I ever built, 7' 6" 3 weight, and headed to what I would consider my home water. This stream has some vary old habitat improvement work done and pretty decent undergrowth. This is the kind of stream where every lie holding a big fish is obvious and my choice of fly always seems to work. I was hoping to encounter some hoppers but found none. I briefly rigged up a small hopper just to try but no takers.

After fishing fast through the first section of stream with the hopper I tried the pink squirrel of prey and BINGO!

This guy put up a solid fight on the three weight. After admiring his spots I returned him to the depths of the river. As I worked my way up stream visibility improved as did the fishing.

I only tied up two pink squirrel of preys and after snapping of on two decent fish was forced to change tactics. One around 18 inches pulled me under and around a rock before retreating to the undercut snapping my line. I tied on a brown SJ worm and continued.

 As I approached this run I noticed a fish near the head of the run. I tossed the fly in and held on!

This guy fought hard but was no match for the three weight. A little further up stream the brute on the right shot out from an undercut to take my fly. He proved to be a handful on the light gear but came to hand after a short fight. As I approached my endpoint I reflected on my trip. I was frustrated that I couldn't land one of the two big guys that snapped my line. I approached the last good spot on my itinerary tentatively.

 This gnarly spot required some thought as to how I'd fish it. I settled on high sticking the fly down stream. After bouncing a few feet my strike indicator dipped below the surface.

This chunky bastard darted under the submerged log pictured above before heading toward the undercuts, rocks, and vegetation.After dancing a pretty complicated dance I scooped him up in my net. After a few quick pics I returned him to the depths. 

I spotted no fish surfacing all day. No hoppers yet either, but soon!