The weather was really nice this weekend and combined with high but reasonable flows on my favorite early season stream lead to my first real trout fishing of 2012. Steelhead are, of course, just be sea-run rainbow trout but you know what I mean…
The flows were still a little too high for my favorite pseudo-secret spot so I went to an area a little more accessible but still off the beaten path. A hike and some bushwhacking got us plenty of untouched water and a few willing trout. I missed one nice fish early in the day when I wasn’t paying attention but broke my skunk in a later run. Fishing partner, MK picked up a couple fish on the way downstream, the second was a very nice cutthroat taken from a difficult lie on a soggy red quill dry fly.
Later in the day in a glassy, spring creek-like section, I picked up a couple trout. The first was a small cutthroat that was rising across the river, taking something just below the surface, probably red quill emergers. I was fishing a softhackle with a traditional wet fly swing but cast upstream to this fish anyway. The trout immediately took the Primrose & Partridge (=confidence fly) and was landed shortly after. A bit downstream, we saw a very large rise near a rock outcrop that has produced a few nice fish in the past. A roll cast across, a big mend and slow swing yielded a jarring take from a fat 13-14″ coastal cutthroat. It was the fist ‘nice fish’ of the season, exactly one week earlier than last year and taken from nearly the same spot!
This was also my first day fishing a new reel. It is a handmade reproduction of a Hardy 1912 Perfect. The reel is made by a master machinist and artist named Chris Henshaw in England. I also have one of Chris’ large salmon reels that I use for steelhead so when this little trout reel became available, I had to snag it. A couple new bamboo trout rods should arrive in late spring and this reel should be just right for the 8′ 3wt which will probably become my ‘go to’ small stream rod. To be continued…
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