Saturday Morning, 21 degrees.
OK, I was a little pissed about the 9wt telephone pole. I felt pretty good Sunday morning after resting Saturday afternoon. Slept in, had breakfast, and since the wife was going to a quilt store with the rest of the gang, I decided to take a solo drive up the river and see what I could do by myself. Fred (I mentioned him earlier) was going up to where we launched the boat on Saturday so I told him I'd meet him up there. Got there and didn't see his truck. My fault, I was looking for a cream color truck and his was tan. Anyway, I missed him. Found a spot along the river, put on the gear and walked out into the water.
None of the fancy Spey stuff this morning. No back, loop, swing around, cast forward, hold the rod close, whip with the butt of the rod, mend right, mend left, lengthen the loop, holy cow.
I let out about 35 feet of line (I have a mark on my line at 35') with a Steelhead fly I picked up at the fly shop on Saturday afternoon. Don't know if it had a name (I'm sure it did), but was mostly black. Pulled in some line, flipped it out, up stream and did a roll cast to get it about 1/3 of the way across the river. Add a little mend to the left and it floated nicely down the river to where I wanted it.
Won't go into all the cast after cast (they call Steelhead "The fish of a 1000 casts"). If you remember, from Saturday, I got three bumps, well Sunday I got 5 or 6 good bumps using my little 6wt in 3 different areas I fished AND I only fished 4 hours instead of the 6 we fished on Saturday. I still haven't got the hook set thing down yet, but watch out American River Steelhead. Shoreman is on the way.
Since I was still moaning and groaning a little from Saturday, I decided to call it a day, besides we were leaving Monday morning. We had planned to stay two extra days, but after the total weekend experience, we decided we didn't want to stay there any longer. In the next post, I'll wrap up the trip. I have plans to fish a couple of streams on the way back and will let you know how that went.
Till then.
Shoreman
You know, Shoreman, I always liked doing things better my way, too. Maybe we're a little bit pig headed, but it IS our time and for our enjoyment, so why not at least try it the way you like to do it.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the fishing on the way back.
Wolfy
Me too, Shoreman. Never been much for guides. Perhaps it is the cost factor, but, I have been fishing for many, many years and that experience has paid off for me many times without the cost layout. Keep us posted.
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