Friday Night Lights

I came home from work yesterday and took about a 2 hour nap and then made it to the river at about 7. The chill of fall was definitely in the air as I got my shit together. I decided to fish the far upper stretches of the river and parked at the last lot. This is the short hike down to the water. At the end of this fence line is where I proposed to my wife about this time of year during a Salmon run. 

Unfortunately, these are about the only decent pictures I was able to get last night. There was a little bit of weather that moved in just as the sun went down but it wasn't bad at all. The worst part of the night was the nasty wind that just wouldn't let up that forced me to get creative with back casts being used for the final cast and using the current to get my fly where I wanted it to be. I did a lot more dead drifting last night than normal because of it.

It's hard to tell in this picture but this is a long stretch of water that's great for night time streamers. The water is only about 2-3 foot deep all through here and chock full of grass weeds but there's little breaks in the weeds where bigger fish will hide and wait. It's the perfect place to quarter a cast downstream and swing it all the way back to the near bank several times before taking 5 steps down river and doing it all again.

I actually spotted this trout in maybe a foot deep riffle and really didn't think it was all that big. I watched her for a minute but just couldn't tell. I thought she was maybe a chunky 18 inches. With not a lot of enthusiasm, I made the 20 foot cast and let it swing right in front of her. She moved out of the way a few times but she was definitely not interested in feeding on it. But she didn't move far so I figured she really liked that spot so I thought I'd see if I could piss her off. I stepped into the water a bit and made another cast that swung the fly right in front of her and stopped it about 1 foot directly in front of her face. I let it drift down to her, made a few twitches and she crushed it. I saw it all. It was all about her getting angry. Once the hook was set I could tell she was bigger than I initially thought and got excited. This was the best I could do and I'm not happy about the picture but she was portly and really needed a 2 hand hold for a proper pic.

It didn't take long before she eased out of my hands but she only slid up about a foot from where I was kneeling in the water. She stayed there for about 10 minutes. I wasn't worried because she looked good but I stayed with her until she finally slid into a deeper hole.

It was a kick ass night. The pack of coyotes came to see me again as did another porcupine and 2 curious foxes.