<<previous

........The larger fish that we were finding the day before were not moved to feed on this morning. There were rises, but mainly by small fish. At one run, which I fished by wading, I landed five trout. All were cutthroat except for one rainbow. The largest might have measured eleven inches. Bennie had taken Chris downstream and when I caught up with them, they reported encountering only small trout too. With nothing much going on, we stopped for lunch.
........After eating, the fishing perked up a bit. Along a cliff, where piles of rocks formed little breaks in the current, we found some larger fish. The first was an eighteen-inch rainbow. It took a scud dropper. Fifty yards downstream from where this rainbow was landed, we found several trout rising simultaneously. Chris and I both cast to these fish and I was the first to hook up. ........The trout shot off downstream taking me into my backing as only a big rainbow could. Bennie dug the oars in deep and we finally caught up with the trout far down on the opposite side of the river. I disembarked to finish the battle and Bennie followed with his net. To our surprise, the rainbow took off again looking every bit like the battle had just begun. Bennie ran back to get the boat because it might be needed again. When he returned, the rainbow was worked in close enough to net. It only measured twenty-one inches, a sprinter with enough staying power to be a long distant racer.
........At a run opposite a wing dam leading into a sweeping pool, a trout made a huge boil after taking Chris's San Juan Worm dropper. It swam downstream with the kind of power that could only come from beats of a broad tail. Then the trout reversed its course and turned back upstream into the strong current.

........

........Unknown to us, it headed for some submerged limbs at the head of the run. There was nothing Chris could do but to follow and watch. When the trout no longer moved, Bennie waded across the heavy flow with the line running through a ring made by a thumb and forefinger. He couldn't free the line and returned to get Chris's rod.
........Upon reaching the opposite bank, he was able to work the line free. Winding the line back onto the reel as he headed upstream, he soon saw the brown. It was finning quietly in three feet of water with the leader wrapped around a stout limb. As Bennie dipped the tip end of the rod into the water to try to free the line, the brown made a surge and the tippet parted. Bennie said the brown was in the thirty-inch class. This got him very excited.
......

next>>