WhooHooo! I took my first trip of the 09 season Wednesday, the 6th of May. It was a good day to re-tool so-to-speak as these guys only had about two days of fly fishing experience between them. The cool thing, is rookies usually listen as they are eager to learn and they usually want to make the most of their guide fees.
The day started with a bang as Dwight hooked up within the first few minutes and landed a nice 18inch Rainbow. A few minutes later, Len landed a small Brown and the day looked promising. However, with the flows increasing throughout the day to about 7800cfs and the feeder creeks dumping a ton of mud, the fishing got spottier and spottier for us.
The bright note was taking a side channel and fishing a riffle for about two hours. The old adage is "never leave fish to find fish," so when we hooked up a couple times the first trip through the riffle, we decided to eddy out, row back up and hit it again. We did this about a dozen times and figured we wouldn't leave until we either caught two whitefish back-to-back or we didn't hook up at least once in the pass. The last time through we didn't hook up but about 50 yards down from the riffle we landed another beautiful 18 inch Rainbow.
There's another saying, "It's better to be lucky than good." We had taken a pass through this same riffle and Len hooked up a whitefish. We pulled over into some skunky water and released the fish and as I was getting Len's line ready to get back into the action, Dwight hooked up on something big. As he brought it in and the fish surfaced we saw what I've only seen now a couple times on the Mo--a sucker and a very big sucker at that. We had a pretty good laugh about it and 'released it' and again, as I straightened Dwight's line out, in the exact same water just three or four feet from the boat, Len declares; "Hey, I got another!"
As Len's fish came up out of the silty water, I saw a pale yellow belly that looked very much like the sucker I just took of Dwight's line. "It's another sucker!" I thought but as the fish came to the surface we all just about crapped our pants as it was about a 21 inch Brownie. It's colors were a little washed out as it came out of some really still, muddy water and without sun to brighten it up, it looked like some kind of Brown ghost. But it was fat and huge--definitely the fish of the day.
The day couldn't have ended better as I hooked up with a few guides and outfitters at Mike Kuhnert's house. Mike cooked two turkeys, 10 pounds of mashed potatoes. A few other notables were Luke Andrew's grandma's stuffing, the creamed corn and plenty of beer. Thanks y'all for the food and even more-so, the hospitality.
Keep 'em where they live...
The day started with a bang as Dwight hooked up within the first few minutes and landed a nice 18inch Rainbow. A few minutes later, Len landed a small Brown and the day looked promising. However, with the flows increasing throughout the day to about 7800cfs and the feeder creeks dumping a ton of mud, the fishing got spottier and spottier for us.
The bright note was taking a side channel and fishing a riffle for about two hours. The old adage is "never leave fish to find fish," so when we hooked up a couple times the first trip through the riffle, we decided to eddy out, row back up and hit it again. We did this about a dozen times and figured we wouldn't leave until we either caught two whitefish back-to-back or we didn't hook up at least once in the pass. The last time through we didn't hook up but about 50 yards down from the riffle we landed another beautiful 18 inch Rainbow.
There's another saying, "It's better to be lucky than good." We had taken a pass through this same riffle and Len hooked up a whitefish. We pulled over into some skunky water and released the fish and as I was getting Len's line ready to get back into the action, Dwight hooked up on something big. As he brought it in and the fish surfaced we saw what I've only seen now a couple times on the Mo--a sucker and a very big sucker at that. We had a pretty good laugh about it and 'released it' and again, as I straightened Dwight's line out, in the exact same water just three or four feet from the boat, Len declares; "Hey, I got another!"
As Len's fish came up out of the silty water, I saw a pale yellow belly that looked very much like the sucker I just took of Dwight's line. "It's another sucker!" I thought but as the fish came to the surface we all just about crapped our pants as it was about a 21 inch Brownie. It's colors were a little washed out as it came out of some really still, muddy water and without sun to brighten it up, it looked like some kind of Brown ghost. But it was fat and huge--definitely the fish of the day.
The day couldn't have ended better as I hooked up with a few guides and outfitters at Mike Kuhnert's house. Mike cooked two turkeys, 10 pounds of mashed potatoes. A few other notables were Luke Andrew's grandma's stuffing, the creamed corn and plenty of beer. Thanks y'all for the food and even more-so, the hospitality.
Keep 'em where they live...
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