Meet up with The Boogieman for some fishing Friday night. Always a pleasure.
We start pounding some familiar areas of river with streamers. Good omen.
She hit this simple concoction of marabou, lead, and tungsten:
Saturday my brother, The Boogieman, and I meet up with Kevin. The suns a shinin, the waters a sparklin, and we find ourselves wonderfully secluded.
We stumble upon a remnant of some sort placed right in the middle of an apparant game trail convergence judging by the tracks of animals large and small littering the snow.
25 yards away on the far bank of the river...
The snow is still dripping blood, we must have just missed breakfast. Or, rather, missed being breakfast.
A few hours in we come across a deep bend. The water is tropic clear and the sun is a shinin' jes riight so you can see right down in there... yet there appears to be layers of different currents that are screening the rocks on the bottom with a blurred effect much like heat rising off hot pavement. Down in there, tight to the very bottom, are a pair of lime and pink stripes flexing and bending in illusion, and slightly shifting from side to side. The opposite bank is lined with bushes reaching out over the area in which a proper drift needs to land.
My first cast goes out and wraps around a twig, I hold my breath, then it miraculously flings itself off in that way that happens about one out of fifty times. I play a few casts short to be safe of the bush and see if I can get a hit, but the flies float through untouched. I go for the gold and shoot for the gap between the bushes. Luck would have it the line lays down perfect.
A Cutbow smacks the #6 vladi worm.
It's pretty rare to get storybook setups like that so I take particular joy in recounting it.
Moments later Kevin sticks a bow.
We jump in the truck and relocate.
We all start tossing streamers and The Boogieman hooks into something right away.
Soon after I stick one on a streamer.
We thought that these fish were just strange looking browns but after reviewing the photos an esteemed colleague of mine pointed out that these fish are in fact little Mackinaw, a.k.a Lake Trout! This was a new species to add to the list for both Ryan and me. Gotta love gettin some strange!
Kevin picks up another mack small white bugger.
Then, Kevin hooks into the fish of the day. She put up a hell of a fight taking him through several pools and over several falls, but he netted her before she got sucked under the bridge.
Good Meeting you Kevin. I'm sure we'll be fishing again.