Apparently, today was amateur hour. I got to the river at 11 and realized I didn't have any tippet. Tippet is the very fine line that you tie to your flies. All I had was a leader that eventually got pretty fine but not nearly fine enough. I ended up using the end section off another leader to connect an additional fly to so I could still run a 2 fly rig. I figured it would work but I knew it wasn't gonna fool the older/bigger fish. Then while walking, I managed to snag my lead fly on the back of my shirt. This was a big problem b/c I couldn't just break the line and re-rig since i didn't have any tippet. I also couldn't get my backpack off with the fly snagged. It was quite the predicament. I eventually got it figured out and got moving again but I feared it was a bad sign.

The flows on this stretch of the South Platte have been almost 250 for about 10 days straight now. Yesterday they shut her down and brought things down to 70. It's amazing how even a difference of 100 cubic feet a second can completely transform the river.

This is a Snake River Cutthroat. I love these fish. This one took an egg pattern.

This was the second Rainbow of the day. This one took another egg pattern (you san see it in the corner of her mouth). The first one completely demolished a fly that I just tied a few weeks ago. There is nothing quite like seeing a trout go bat shit crazy on one of your own flies.

This was another Snake River Cutt that took a small worm pattern. Not a worm like a night crawler. There are some worms that are present during the spawn. They actually eat the eggs along the bottom of the river. This particular one was a #20 that had been tied with brass wire and also had a clear bead head on it.

I only got to fish for 2 hours today before I got an ugly wind knot. I was kneeling down in the grass solving the puzzle and had it but when I went to stand up I guess I was hooked on a twig cuz it broke off the lead fly and that was game over. I was very happy though. It was a gorgeous day on the river except for the knucklehead that was trying to muscle into the hole I was fishing. We had a short talk about ethics and he moved on. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?