Three Days Of Heavenly Skies

I'm now back home after fishing three days up on Rainy Mountain. And, I must say it was exhilarating each day, each minute, each trout brought to the net. The first day I was with two of my fishing buddies, Rich and Neal. The weather was great with a perfect cloudy sky for fishing trout. We had a good time and brought in a bunch of trout (see previous post).

The second day, I was on the mountain for a solo trip to camp, one night, and fish late into the sunset. While lightning kept me off the very top of the mountain, I was able to fish some streams lower down, with a couple of interruptions of light rain. On this day, I rigged up an old classic Winston IM6 7'6" 3wt rod specifically for two streams. The best fishing time on this day turned out to be after dinner. I was sitting there at the camp table listening to the rush of the stream and decided to go fish it. Glad I did, it didn't take long to bring in several wild browns that got active and hit my dry fly with some violent splashes! Well, we're talking about the 'leetle fellers' so these splashes were impressive for their size. I'll never tire of a top water strike.

At sunset, I locked up the gear in the cab and jumped into the truck camper for the night. I was tired...very tired! The drizzle and dropping temperatures were clues of a nice, peaceful night while I tucked into my sleeping bag. I usually read a book for about an hour before falling to sleep and the same thing happened here in the campground...my current book is C.J. Box's novel, Shadows Reel. It must have rained all night long because I would wake up every now and then to the patter of rain drops hitting the roof of the camper shell. Still, I slept good and hard. Does it get any better than camping by a running trout stream? I don't think so....

The alarm went off at 7:00am the next morning. And, I would be joining another good friend of mine, Jeff (el jefe), a long time fly fisher who knows his way around fly gear, rod building, and trout fishing. While Jeff was driving up, we kept in touch by text through the morning about the heavy rainfall, but agreed we each needed to give it a go....glad we did. Our time fishing wasn't as long as we had planned, but we netted a lot fish that was very satisfying, especially for the few hours we were given. When the skies started flashing bolts of lightning, we called it a day. Dang, this place may be more beautiful with soupy skies and rain than on sunny days. I'm always inspired to be more conscious of the marvels in the outdoors after fishing here. Sadly, pictures don't do this place justice...it has wow factor!

Gear: All Winstons - WT 7' 3wt, IM6 7'6" 3wt, WT TMF 8' 4wt; Trutta Perfetta fly reel, Hardy LRH fly reel; Dry Flies only....as usual.

Some random photos I took through the three days are below:

Click on photo for larger view