Hello
friends and thanks for checking in at the O’Grady Fly Fishing Adventures. It is
that time of the year again where you have to ask the question many times a
day. I have told the story before where years ago I was fighting this fish up
and down the river and when he had had enough of me, broke my line. At the top
of my lungs I yelled a few, not so pretty expletives, and stormed off up the
river. I turned the corner and saw a friend and embarrassingly, asked him if he
heard my tantrum. He told me he heard something and then kept his distance, I’m
guessing he figured I had some serious anger issues. I don’t think I have at
all gotten bored with fishing but these days I am way more excited fooling fish
than actually landing them.
The river right now is coming into
prime condition, flows are just over 400cfs and the BWO’s are popping. With the
water warming up, the moss is just starting to cover the bottom and making the
footing a little slippery. Now with these conditions, nearly every hook up, you
have to ask yourself how bad you want to get him landed. On Wednesday I had a
client in a place where he was hooking a lot of fish but they were nearly impossible
to land, they would stay just across from us and then they would head below us
and grab the current. The reel would scream and once the line started going
under water, the hook would pop out. On Friday I fished by myself and anchored
up on a run through the middle of the river. I hooked several fish and the
biggest looked to be about 18 inches. Now I could have chased each one down and
across to get them in a safe spot but I just didn’t want to work that hard.
Todays trip was a father and son and
what a great day. The first few hook ups we had to stand still and the fish
were able to beat us. I got Dillon into a run and his first hook up looked to
be an awesome fish. I grabbed the back of his waders and told him we needed to
follow, the fish headed towards some rocks and he got is rod way up in the air.
We chased him down river and were able to get him into some quiet water and get
him landed. He was an absolutely perfect, eighteen-and-a-half-inch brownie. We walked
back up into the run and hooked a few more but couldn’t chase the rest down.
Mark, hooked the next fish and we quickly chased him down river and in true father/son,
rivalry, he landed an eighteen and three-quarter inch rainbow. They continued
to hook fish all afternoon but the frustrating part happened when Dillon hooked
what looked to be a twenty plus inch fish, he got below us and I didn’t feel
like we could safely chase him and the piggie flipped us a fin. We didn’t get
him landed but laughed anyway and Dillon will have something to think about
when shutting his eyes this evening. The last two fish were an eighteen and
seven eighth and an eighteen and seven and a half eighth. Yeah, I know, the
last two were lengths were estimated. What an awesome day!
If you get to the river over the
next few weeks make the decision quickly, is the fish worth it or not. Do you
want to have to walk all the way back up river and more importantly, are you
putting yourself in an unsafe spot? Running down a slick river can turn bad in
a hurry and there are plenty of other fish that are eating. I have openings
early this week so give us a call 719-568-4927 and as Always, Connell, Cat,
Winston, and the Drift Fly Shop want to thank you for reading….
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