The Epical 2025 Fishing Yarns and Photo Thread

[Rasputin]

Today was another mostly cloudy day with passing thundershowers, so I decided to see if the water was low enough to reach some of the most reliable big fish catching spots. Now I know for some of you what I call big fish are really quite marginal, but I think anything over 16" is a big one. Anyway, I went to where I have often caught fish which are in my estimation big.

So, after arriving, on my first cast, I caught a 16" cut/bow which went for a brown Pat's rubberlegs, which apparently looks like something in the river because it caught nine fish, of three and a half different species (only half of the fist fish was a cutthroat).





Yes, I caught 11 fish today, however six of them were small, to quite small, pike minnows which seemed to be everywhere. After working along the usual stretch of river, and catching a small whitefish, the voice which I identify as the God of flyfishing, told me not to stay there to long, as I would catch a big fish up stream at the big bend. So I didn't obsess on working the water like I often do, and made my way up stream. The water was about as high as I have fished there, and when I reached the big bend, I found water running across a shallow which has always been above water when I fished it. This shallow dumped into deeper water that usually is a back eddy created where the current goes across the river due to the abrupt bend. It seemed to me a natural place for a wily trout fish to gobble bugs and such that were washed from among the rocks of the shallow, so I worked along the drop off. I was amazed as I proceeded, that I was not getting titanic strikes. The back eddy that usually was there always seemed like it should produce, but it never had, and now that it was a perfect spot for a trout ambuscade, I was still not getting titanic strikes. Since reasoning with the Almighty about the propriety of that water for large trouts to eat was not working, I humbled myself and said "...of course, what do I know, I am a silly clown of a flyfisher, and would never catch a big fish if you didn't tell them to bite." Then the chubby indicator fly dunked under water, and I pulled in the big fish of the day. He was missing a chunk of his gill plate on one side, perhaps a close call with one of the many eagles in the area. Then I thanked the God of Flyfishing for telling me I would catch a big one if I went up to the big bend. Amen


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[swimmy]

jpcm told me this place was back from the dead. Guess we&rsquo;ll see.In the meantime, here for a few days. One of my favorite places in the world.

[Rasputin]

Beautiful swimmy, thanks for that.

[swimmy]

Salmon fly eater.

[Rasputin]

Well that's just a beauty swimmy.

I also caught a decent fish today, on a purple chubby chernobyl, hard to tell if he thought it was a salmonfly or what.

Actually I caught another one on it as well. After catching the second fish, another fish made the chubby disappear, then when I set the hook, whatever it was, took off like a torpedo, and broke the leader in the middle of the 2x section. Holy crap! I didn't even have time to let out line, and it was done. I think it may have been the biggest fish I never caught!


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[neckdeep]

I had one of those last week. Felt like a 10lb brown but turned out it was just a 5lb utah sucker foul hooked in the adipose fin.

[plugboots]

Those stay with you.
30 years ago, I was high stick nymphing the $3 bridge section, and a fish just crushed my nymph. It just took off, straight upstream. I was letting go with my finger to let it run, and it just popped my 3X.
I had a bonefish 20 years ago hit my fly, running away from me, and snapped my 16 pound tippet.
A year ago, a tarpon did the same thing, on 40 pound class tippet.
I’ve got more.

[tgapp]

got to fish on father's day
first cast with a size 20 parachute Adams
this river is really pretty small, much more used to fish in the 6-12" range here
got a sick new fishing hat for Father's Day too



only been bonefishing once and the only time i hooked up the fish totally broke me off on his second run and I wasn't horsing him either, just pure electricity even well past the point I thought the fight was more or less over

i reckon I'll keep thinking about that fish for the rest of my life

[Rasputin]

Nice one tgapp! I love hooking into something decent in a small stream!

Today I continued my usual clown show on the river. A few minutes into the day, I fell down crossing a small braid of the river that was a bit faster and deeper than it looked, and put about a quart of water in my waders, but fortune was on my side, as my camera and cell phone suffered no saturation! I call that a win, but I had wet feet and pants all day. Later, as I was undoing twisted flyline, a very large trout took my chubby chernobyl as it dragged downstream, I was so startled that my hook set was a bit over energetic, and broke off my rig in the fish's mouth! DOH! Two days in a row I lost the big one (incidentally, I will sheepishly confess that the reason yesterday's lunker broke the line so quickly was likely because I opted to fish with a knot in my leader even though I know better, I was irritated when I found the knot, and threw caution to the wind. I only recalled this as I lay in bed last night. Silly Rasputin, don't throw caution to the wind!)

Eventually though, the clown got some help from his higher power and caught a healthy rainbow and a few other smaller trouts, before squishing off into the sunset, with dry feet and pants on his mind.

[Rasputin]

I actually have a pretty good story in me about today's fishing trip, but I'm worn out and will just post some pics for now.