Browns & Bows

 I introduced Sylvia yesterday to another trout stream where I enjoy floating a dry fly a few times each year. This is a pretty mountain creek at over eight thousand feet in elevation, and I wanted her to see it.

We've been doing day trips the last couple of weeks to keep our minds off of my upcoming surgery next week. She's been fantastic, and during this time I discovered just how much of a natural trout hunter she is. Must be some of that Cherokee DNA thing she has running through her veins. She can hear a faint splash made by a trout thirty yards away, and then spot him for me to run a dry fly by his nose. She's really perceptive to their feeding behavior and where they hold within the stream's structure. Yup, I had a fishing guide this day.

We lucked out, I must say. While there are plenty of wild brown trout in this creek, the G&F department must have recently stocked this area. We spotted hundreds of trout throughout the day. And they would get excited to see my dry flies drift toward them. I caught many browns and rainbows within a 50 yard section of stream. The fishing was so good, I got tired of netting trout and just sat down in a camp chair under a shade tree and watched the trout do their thing.

Seems on many of my fishing trips, there is always something that occurs to make me raise an eyebrow and go either, "hmmm", "wow", "huh", or "oh crap." Around noon time, we were taking a break and having some ice cold tea when a Game & Fish truck came flying by us pulling a wildlife transport trailer...with a bear inside it! Obviously, he was re-locating the bear. In about an hour and a half, he came rolling back down the one-lane dirt road with an empty trailer. Sylvia and I looked at each other, and we could see it in each other's face. We each were assessing how fast could that bear make its way down to our piece of trout heaven. Yeah, I fished another hour, and then we packed up and departed for home. I caught more trout than usual in this mountain creek, anyway.

Today was my last free day before all of next week's appointments, so please be patient for the next few weeks if you don't see any topics on fishing being posted. They will resume, but it will take a bit of recovery time before I continue my love for fly fishing. I'll posts some tackle topics in the meantime. Life is good!

Gear: Winston WT 6'6" 2wt fly rod; Bauer SST3 fly reel; Winston Energy WF2F fly line; Patagonia sling pack; Parachute Adams and Black Ant dry flies.