hey guys,
today i finally succeeded in landing my first rainbow!
ill start off with this is my first full year fly fishing (went out about 4 times last year) and so its been hell so far. ive only managed 2 RMWF in about 20+ outings, ya that rough haha. ive LDR'd about 7 fish in that span though. had a good rainbow on, but when he went airborne he spat the hook.
even with this massive caddis hatch, ive gone out monday, thursday and today, and i just landed my first fish. monday was really windy and i managed to hook into a rainbow and brown, both LDR'd and thursday i got nothing.
so today i decided to head down past 22x to the "sooper sekret spott" and nymph. well i nymph'd all the way down to the spot, and when i got there i got nothing in about an hour. no risers in sight.
so back up the river i went this time with an elk hair caddis looking for risers. i stopped where earlier i saw another guy LDR a good fish and so i started casting in that same spot. a couple minutes later there is 2 risers about 10 feet apart infront of me. so i tried for about half an hour to get them with nothing. switched it up to a parachute dry that a guide at country pleasures told me to try and still nothing.
the whole time i kept hearing splashing behind me, but didnt really think much of it as everytime i turned around it was just the riffles behind me. one time though i saw a rainbow smash a caddis. so then i watched another caddis float down and he smashed it again. i thought well these 2 here are barely feeding while that one is going nuts. took me about 1/2 second to make up my mind. so i walked down towards the other riser.
a couple casts and nothing happened. i thought i got to close and spooked him. but then he rose again and smashed another caddis. so i cast my fly about 2 feet upstream of the rise, and 1/2 second later the water erupted and the rainbow hit the fly heading downstream. i set the hook hard as i didnt want to lose another good fish.
he made a dart for the middle of the river and peeled about 25 yds of line off in a couple seconds. but i managed to get that all back before he took off again. he jumped twice about 2 feet in the air both times and took 5 runs. since i dont have a net (yet) i had to wade the 50 feet to shore while fighting the fish. i almost fell a couple times but i made it to the bank and slower water. after a couple minutes and a couple failed attempts at landing the fish (about 4) i finally scooped it up from under the belly.
first thing i did was throw my rod on the bank and pull out the cell phone. took a couple pics and back into the water for some oxygen. then took it back out to get the fly out, and make a mark on my rod for a measurement.
one thing i noticed when i was taking the hook out, was lots of blood in its mouth. there wasnt any coming out the gills, but when i put the fish in the water again, a decent cloud of blood came out and after about 6 pumps of its gills the blood stopped. i thought it was weird since it wasnt hooked deep at all.
anyways here are the pictures. the adrenaline was pumping hard so i was shaking the entire time. my leg as bouncing up and down as i took the pictures haha. so i apologize for the terrible pictures.
when i got home i measured the mark and the fish was 20.5 inches. not to bad for a first bow river bow!
First Rainbow! PICS!
Cern may have the Higgs Boson, but I prefer my find of the Hugs Bison
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