I am not sure how to describe this trip. It started as a ridiculously beautiful day in mid March. Because of the weather, the anticipation to fish was almost more than I could take. The humor involved was typical; the fellowship was fantastic. It was a trip filled with promise, danger and even a few furious brown trout. Just another good day to be a fly fisher here in the FLATLAND.
Mike's father-in-law might be new to fly fishing, but definitely not new to catching loads of fish!
Another pretty-yet-small Mad brown
Mike, once again, provided the humor. We were finally all loaded up and ready to go when I asked him if he had bought his new license. We ended up back in the house and on the computer to buy a new license. Later, we watched Mike as he tried to cross a section of the river that was deeper than he was tall. It would have been fine, but he just kept walking. I am still not sure why he did not stop, but the whole thing reminded me of a cartoon.
We arrived at the river around 2:30 and the fishing started off superbly. I rigged up with a parachute adams and a copper john dropper. On my third cast, a fish came up and smacked the dry. I was a little slow on the take, but the fish did not spook. I soon had Mike’s father-in-law in position for his first fish of the day. Things were looking great, but they would not stay that way for long.
We decided to walk down the river to fish a beat that has always been good to us. We planned on working our way back up the river hitting all of the best riffles and runs. Mike and I hooked up quickly and before I knew it we both had a few fish in the net. And then the sky let loose. We saw the storm coming, but it did not look all that ominous. We continued to fish with the anticipation that we would soon be wet from a passing shower. Passing shower- yeah right!
It started off harmless enough, but soon there was heavy rain. This was then followed by pea sized hail that was then followed by larger grape-sized hail. Hail hurts! We all took what little shelter we could find beneath the tall cottonwoods. We were too far to run back to the car at this point and too wet to bother. To add insult to injury, our wading jackets were all dry and comfortable back at the car. Another brilliant move from the boys at Flatlander!
You can only imagine what the hail did to the mood of the fish. It was like we took an entire school of children to the river and gave them handfuls of river gravel to throw. It took things about an hour to settle back down, but we did end up catching another three or four more fish. From there, the day just sort of fizzled. We stayed until dark hoping for a spinner fall and a rise of fish, but that never happened. It was a fun, there was fishing and fellowship. There was even some danger. Another awesome adventure here in the flatland.
Days like this shouldn't end without a peek of blue sky.
That’s a hail of a video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!