About a month back, Jen and I made plans to go fishing with a friend of ours, Mister Hinz. It's been years since we'd gone out fishing together, but we were determined to fix that. And we did. Last weekend, everything went as planned and Friday after work, we were on the road to another adventure.
We got into town and checked in at the motel, where I got a quick run down on the fishing reports of the day (which were promising), and got the room number of where Mister Hinz was staying for the weekend. The three of us hooked up in the parking lot, and Mister Hinz had told us that he had already hit a spot and caught a couple of trout before we got there.
Excited to hear more, we headed off to the local burger joint for supper and to hear more about the local waters of the area. Typical of rural trout country, the establishment was adorned with local taxidermy of fish, furry things, and fowl. This was just what the doctor ordered!
Saturday morning after breakfast we headed to our first stop, changed into waders for the day, and grabbed our 4wt rods. I had brought with me my new bamboo rod that I bought the weekend before at a very good price that I couldn't pass up. A 2 piece, 7' 4wt, with two tips made by Steve Pennington. We set Jen up in a nice area that had some fish occasionally breaking the surface here and there, but nothing too consistent. She fished for awhile and then we had her switch to a rod that was set up a little differently. It didn't take long and she was getting some action. After a few "practice" sets thanks to the playful trout, Jen caught her first brown trout of the season. It was a blast to watch, as she was really excited while she was trying to land him. Her smile was huge, and now she could relax a little about the rest of the season. Mister Hinz popped a beer and I lit a cigar in celebration of her victory. We have confidence that eventually Jen will develop her own sinful victory dance, but until then we've got her covered.
She caught a couple more, and then finally I couldn't refrain from trying my hand at a trout I had been watching downstream of her this whole time. I tried my best sight fishing for the one nice sized trout, but after many last second refusals and several different flies, we moved on to another spot.
Contrary to all the grim weather reports of rain and wind, it was a blue bird day with very comfortable temps. In fact the whole weekend had great weather, we really lucked out. We jumped from spot to spot, occasionally getting in the truck and moving to other sections to try out. As our streak would have it, there were once again lots of various mayflies popping throughout the day, and the trout would have very little to do with taking them off the surface. They were keyed in on emergers, and thus most of the fish caught were on nymphs and midges in the size range of 18 to 22. I was really excited to catch several browns on one of my newer variations of the old zebra midge. This one had a little flare and an additional twist to it. I'll keep that pattern a secret for just a while longer.
When the day was done, we had all caught several trout, and they all were scrappy fighters. We had a lot of fun. We also tried something new that I heard about and never done before, which was we did a rotation so that only one person was fishing at a time. And we stuck to that most of the time. It made it fun by keeping us close together and we all felt that we were a part of each take, miss, and landed fish.
We ended the day back at the same burger place were visited the night before to crush the well deserved appetite. Then went back to the hotel where Mister Hinz and I had a few refreshments and looked at a lot of fish porn that was on his digital camera from his past several trips of the year.
It was a great April Easter weekend and I am pumped to get back out on the river for more fun.
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