Today

I gave Graduate school the finger and went up to see what was going on up at the ranch. The browns should be gearing up to do their thing real soon here. Since my schedule is kind of tight I think I'm going to be doing a lot of night fishing this fall which is actually fine by me.

The van is the perfect fly fishing vehicle.

It always makes me sad to see death and particularly when it involves a lovely brown.

There are soooooo many bends like this in this part of the river as it winds it's way through this meadow.

On the way home I saw 2 flocks of turkeys. Look dead center in the pic.

Crazy clouds in Woodland.

If you're reading this Scott....it was slow today but the bigger fish are starting to move up from the reservoir.

Before I started riding again, I was a huge snob when it came to fishing. I spent a lot of time walking and glassing the water for big fish. Anything that was under 14" was not worthy of a cast. I'm back. I passed on several decent looking fish today while keeping an eye out for a really nice one. I fished most of the day with an ugly looking streamer. At one point, I lost it and as soon as that happened I spotted an 18" brown that slid up in a riffle and set up. I had no more streamers and now I had to completely re-rig. New leader, tippet, an egg pattern, a mercury black beauty, a shot of weight, and a balloon. I tied everything with one eye while keeping an eye on her. I botched one knot and had to give it my undivided attention so I trusted it and when I looked up....she was gone.

I walked that stretch of water up and down really slowly while glassing and then decided to get in so I could check the other side. After about 5 minutes, I found her about 20 yards upstream on the other side. I got up on the far bank and approached her on my knees. She was maybe a foot from a small undercut and then I saw 2 more just like her and they were all together. Conditions sucked for sure. Strong wind from the right that was blowing the line to the left and I had to get it as close to the bank as possible. They spooked. I waited. They slid back in. We did this dance for about an hour. Finally.......I got into one of them. As soon as she knew she was hooked, she shook and took off upstream like a torpedo. She came out of the water and immediately broke off.