Banner day

This was a few weeks ago, on September 24th, but it ended up being one of my best days on the water all year. I went out to a small creek less than an hour from home. I fished copper johns, scuds, beetles and BWOs all day with continuous success catching. It was beautiful, cloudy, 60-70 degrees, and I almost managed not to get wet. Almost.

 Lots of Browns. I even caught a sunfish, that was weird.

This one was pretty content to hang out in my net for a while.

I was calculating. Focused. I planned out every move so that I could get to each lie without ever having water go over the top of my hip boots.

Then I got wet.

I was hitting a couple spots on my way back to the car fishing a terrestrial + dropper, when all of a sudden I felt a thud. Surely I had been snagged on a log. Then I saw a flash of red. Then, throwing all my previously mentioned caution to the wind, I jumped in, there was no way of landing this fish on a 5x tippet without some serious maneuvering. Finally after s getting completely soaked, I netted this rainbow on the fourth attempt. My largest trout of the year and ever on a fly. 17.5" rainbow. She was truly the queen of this stream. We had a nice hang out while she recovered and after about 5 minutes she took off in a flash. I still smile thinking about this fish.