Boulders, Creeks, and Even A Few Fish

The Rainbow Trout Says..... Rawr!

Wow, Summer sure is great. I've been out on the water the last three out of four days! It doesn't get much better than that, but somehow it did. The day I wasn't fishing, I spent the day talking to Howard from Wind Knots And Tangled Lines, John Gierach, and A.K. Best. Today, I got another surprise. When I got home from fishing and checked my e-mails, another well known name had popped up. Professional fly fisherman and fly tier, Juan Ramirez, was at the top of the list. He complimented me on my blog, and told me to keep it up. Like more of what I said yesterday, it's really nice to hear I'm doing things right from the top of the sport. If you haven't seen Juan's blog, The Hopper Juan, I would strongly urge you to check it out. This was a great ending to the truly amazing morning I had out on the water. Me and my dad were out hitting the Creek, as he is learning how to fly fish. Since he had never caught anything by himself, I figured he had a good chance there. I guess I was right, because my dad caught and released his first fish, a beautiful 8 inch Cutbow. Most of my time was spent helping him and practicing my guide skills, but I did still get a few chances to fish. As my dad was still putting on his waders, I put a cast in. Three seconds, Bam! Something ate my dry. After a good tussle bringing the fish through fast water, I put the 10 inch brown into my net. Here is a good picture of him with the hopper in his mouth:

After that, I helped my dad fish for a while, but with no success. I did learn something new in this though, and that is that almost everything has it's flaws. The new Thingamabobbers have flags so they don't slide, but then you lose them in a tree if you hook a branch! Crap! So my dad hadn't caught any fish, but I showed him a trick or two. As I was demonstrating how to high-stick, my dry popped under. By pure instinct, I set the hook. What resulted from the top pocket pictured here was the beautiful 15 inch rainbow below. Upon further review, the rainbow had an inch long baby mouse in it's stomach:

I really enjoyed this, as that is the biggest fish I have seen above Boulder Falls this season. It definitely beat the 13 inch bow I caught there two days ago. So after that I laid down my rod for a while my dad fished, but still couldn't seem to get on the fish. When we got to one hole that my dad couldn't get to, he told me to have a shot at it. First cast, what do ya know? I caught this nice 10 inch Cutbow on a Blue Poison Tung:

After that, I laid down my rod once again to help my dad with the fish. We got to the top of a hole, and he put a nice cast in. I saw the fish try and eat the fly, but missed. The fish then did a full turn, chased the fly downstream, and ate it. After my quick yell of "Set!" the fish was fought and brought into the net, his first fish ever. He was very happy, but I think I was even happier. It'd be nice to have another person in the family into fishing. Here is my dad with the beautiful Cutbow, a nice fish and definitely the height of the trip:

After catching a few more fish the size of my thumb to the size of my whole hand, we went up to lunch in Nederland. Naturally, I had to fish the Creek up there, even though it was rushing beyond belief. Once the Girdle Bug didn't work, I tied on an olive Slump Buster. Two fish later, I decide to call it a day and go home. Get out on the water, it's great out there!

The Whitewater Kayak Course That is Usually a Calm Boulder Creek