Scouting It Out…

We had some nice days this week if you don't count the wind, and I thought it would be fun to go up the mountain and enjoy the area. I checked out four streams and they were all the same...high, fast, and muddy. Yep, they are well into the spring runoff. The big question is how much longer will they be running high and loud?

These runoff conditions don't give a dry fly guy any hope of fooling a wild trout. Heck, I don't think a trout could even see a fly drifting on top of that water. It was very murky. However, I did hike the trails with a fly rod in hand and whenever I noticed some spots with slower water, I would send a fly there to drift for about two seconds, before it would get swept away in a hurry.

While it wasn't anything close to feasible fishing conditions, it was nice to get outdoors and cast a fly rod on a pretty day. Anytime I'm on the side of a mountain hiking along a trout stream, I'm a happy guy. It's good exercise in a beautiful place and it sure beats going to the gym.

The fly rod I was carrying....is an iconic model. It's a Winston IM6 7'6" 3wt rod with an Abel TR2 reel locked in, for a classic kit I never get tired of fishing. This rod and reel have seen streams from down south in Gila country, up to Colorado in some amazing stream environments. And, I have mentioned this on the blog before, this rod brought to net my largest brown trout (18 plus inches) on a 3wt fly rod. The rod was built in 1997 and it doesn't take a back seat to any current rod model in today's fly shops.

Click on photo for larger view