fishpro
07-22-2010, 09:32 PM
Drove out to a small creek yesterday to try some new water after hearing good things about it. I got set up and hit the water around 12:15. In no time I was into a few cutts, including a few around 12-13 inches that were still fairly skinny. After about an hour the weather started to turn as clouds came in and eventually there was some thunder overheard. Caught a few more then had to go into the trees and wait out the storm. It started to clear, so I began fishing again, then on my way upstream I saw this:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010029.jpg
From what I researched, that is an extremely large cougar track, so needless to say I was a little nervous continuing. I fish for a while longer, pulled two 12 inch cutts out of a hole when the sun came out for 5 minutes, but other than that the fishing remained quite slow. Around 3:45 I decided to get up to higher ground and head back (bad weather, slow fishing, and the threat of a cougar all helped me decide this).
By the time I got back to where I started the weather had gotten slightly nicer so I hit the creek once more and went downstream from where I started. Found a nice pool and worked it thoroughly, and after a few casts saw my dry go down near the end of drift. Assuming it was drowned I went to recast again and felt weight on the end from a fish on the dropper, which got off after a couple seconds. Next cast, same place, dry goes down and I set the hook into a beautiful cutthroat. After a short fight on my new Sage TXL 000wt I had it in the net, largest fish of the day.
The pool:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010031.jpg
The fish:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010030.jpg
All fish were taken on either a size 14 yellow humpy or a size 16 BH pheasant tail.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010029.jpg
From what I researched, that is an extremely large cougar track, so needless to say I was a little nervous continuing. I fish for a while longer, pulled two 12 inch cutts out of a hole when the sun came out for 5 minutes, but other than that the fishing remained quite slow. Around 3:45 I decided to get up to higher ground and head back (bad weather, slow fishing, and the threat of a cougar all helped me decide this).
By the time I got back to where I started the weather had gotten slightly nicer so I hit the creek once more and went downstream from where I started. Found a nice pool and worked it thoroughly, and after a few casts saw my dry go down near the end of drift. Assuming it was drowned I went to recast again and felt weight on the end from a fish on the dropper, which got off after a couple seconds. Next cast, same place, dry goes down and I set the hook into a beautiful cutthroat. After a short fight on my new Sage TXL 000wt I had it in the net, largest fish of the day.
The pool:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010031.jpg
The fish:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/fishpro/July2010030.jpg
All fish were taken on either a size 14 yellow humpy or a size 16 BH pheasant tail.