Harman's Day 2 Round 2 2011-Evening Session

Well when I got back to the cabin from my morning session, the wife had hot food waiting for me.  My favorite too, pancakes.  Plus bacon and hot coffee.  Good times!  I had breakfast with the wife, drank some coffee, and smoked a cigar.  With time approaching 2, I decided to head back out again.  I figured I would try below the bridge this go around.  I always love fishing this section of the stream.  It really is beautiful.  I usually don't do well there though.  So I jumped in the car, cause I am to lazy to walk, and drove down to the other section.  Here is what the water looked like from the bridge looking back up towards our cabin:

Here is what the water looks like below the bridge from where I was standing which was a little above the deck for those that have been there:

Fantastic scenery!  Well, I stayed with the black woolly bugger and over the course of the next hour and a half landed some more fish.  Fishing the runs, I managed to pick up 4 fall fish/creek chubs/stone rollers and 1 brown.  Not bad but not great.  I could see the bows again, but couldn't get them to hit on the bugger.  Again, they were breaking the surface and sipping stuff but I had no clue what it was.  Here are some photos of the fish I landed:

I give up!  This whole thing with blogger rotating the photos is killing me!  Does anyone else go through this as well?

Back to the story.....5 fish netted, I decided to go back to the area above the bridge.  When I got there, I noticed that more people were fishing out behind cabins 12 and 13.  Remembering an article I read years ago, I decided to walk down stream for a bit to get away from people.  I figured there had to be some fish down stream that no one had touched yet.  As it turned out, I was right.  I managed to locate a shallow run not to far above the bridge that held at least 10 rainbows.  I could see them just laying on the bottom.  I continued to chuck the black woolly bugger.  I actually had a few follows but no takers.  I decided to switch to a brown woolly bugger and give that a whirl!  I managed to see a bow hiding under a rock waiting to ambush something.  So, I threw my fly towards him and for once I got the perfect drift.  The bow slid out and slammed the woolly bugger.  Here he is:

After I released him, he didn't go far.  Here he is.  Can you see him?

I released that guy and started searching for more.  This was sight fishing at its finest.  I would locate a bow and cast above it.  Letting the woolly bugger swing down til it was right in front of their noses, I would then strip it and get them to chase it.  Out of this run, I managed to land two more bows.  They were big.  Well big for me at least.  I will let you be the judge. 

I should have brought a bigger net!  This last guy or girl took me about 5 minutes to land.  I struggled with it using my 3wt.  I just didn't have enough power in the 7 foot rod to turn the fish or bring it in.  It made several reel screaming, heart stopping runs.  I was sure I was going to lose it at any moment.  It is by far my biggest rainbow I have ever landed.  Actually the biggest trout I have ever landed!  I didn't feel that the net really did the fish justice.  Against my better judgment, I brought the fish out and set it on a rock next to my rod for a quick photo.  For me at least, it was the fish of a life time and no one around to snap a photo of it.  Here it is next to my rod:

Again the whole photo turning thing but I think you get the idea.  After this fish, I figured I pushed my luck and decided to move back up stream.  A check revealed that the other fishermen had called it quits so I was left all alone.  I hit another pool and on the first cast I landed this guy:

Nice little brownie that came to the net.  A few casts later, I picked up this guy:

This one was beautiful!  In the end, I managed to bring 4 creek chubs, 4 rainbows and 2 browns to the net during the evening session.  Those bows were huge.  Well to me they were.  It was a great evening.  I couldn't wait to get up Tuesday morning and hit the stream again.  Stay tuned for more.