I decided to meet up with Andrew on the morning of the 15th to go after some big fish. He was actually one up on me for the year and had 7 golden rainbows to the net where I currently only had 6. Knowing there were a few of those in this stream it was a race to see if I could pull through to my goal of 8 before him today.
Luckily he was running late and I arrived promptly at 8am while he had about 30 minutes left until he showed up. I knew I had an edge here and could quickly tie up with my 7th if I could find one and land it before he showed up. And thats precisely what happened. Luckily I was able to find one in about 15 minutes and get him to take a white egg pattern. He was one ugly fish for sure, with his bulging about to burst eyeball, but a fish is a fish and I was now tied up with 7 for the year.
Andrew arrived and I graced him with the news. Now it was really on for the rest of the day, who would be landing that 8th one first. I honestly was more focused on other fish in the stream. Big browns and rainbows, some 24-25″.
Andrew hooked into the fish big fish. A rainbow at 21″ who sucked in a purple midge.
Andrew then spotted another golden. Since im like kryptonite when I fish with him, he hooked up, and immediate after, the fish was off! It seems like whenever Im with him, the past 3 goldens hes hooked up with, have spit the hook. It wasn’t long until we found another as we ventured down stream. Being hte gentleman I am I gave him first shot. And it was FIRST cast he hooked up. I figured it was over and he was landing his 8th fish first. BUT AGAIN, just in reach to be netted, the fish popped off and swam free.
Muwahahaha I chuckled to myself as Andrew threw his hands into the air in disbelief. We moved on and got into a couple more big Rainbows, both around the 20-21″ mark.
This stream is a very long stretch to fish. About two miles id say. And as we kept fishing down we kept catching fish.
It wasnt long until we found a brown. I honestly prefer brown trout over rainbows. There’s nothing like a monster brown trout to the net. If I had a vote, all those stocked Golden Rainbows would be Browns instead. But we all knows where the PFBC gets alo’t of their money.
And then then there was another, including a tank of a rainbow.
The day was coming to and end and the action had slowed with a fish here and there and Andrew decided to give one of the Golden Rainbows he rolled earlier another shot for redemption. After a handful of casts he decided to change up flies. This is where I snuck in. Two casts in and BAM, FISH ON! HE was furious, with laughter of course. Since this was the second time in the past few outings together that I sniped a fish from him in a similar fashion.
After about 9 hours on the water it was time to call it a day. And a good one it was. There were 2 or 3 other big fish we rolled and even some we couldn’t get to even take a look at our flies. Perhaps you’ll see them another day.