High winds with a good dowsing of rain and no fish to be had

I started my fishing day out at 10AM on the Fall with very high gusts of wind and lots of rain. Good thing I was layered up quite well. I quickly made my way to the same fishing hole I caught fish at the other day. I hooked on a nice olive green hares ear and began fishing. My first cast I landed a nice whopping hat. My second cast I landed a pretty big pine tree. The winds really weren't playing to my favor.

After the winds died down a bit I finally got my fly wet and placed it perfectly right in the hole. It felt like when you hit that 45 foot putt that you shouldn't have made. After sitting in this spot for 20 minutes and only getting a couple small hits I moved down stream right in front of the fish hatchery. Now I know what most of you are thinking. He plopped his fly right into the fish ponds! And to be honest I have thought about it on more than one occasion. There's some giant bricks in those ponds that would put up one hell of a fight.

I found a nice deep channel with about 4 descent sized lunkers that if caught I might stuff and mount on a wall. I stuck with hares year but it wasn't getting deep enough. I through on a red copper john and that seemed to get to right depth. It passed right in front of them and they didn't even budge. I changed to a caddis nymph and that also didn't seem to do the trick either. At this point I was scratching my head wondering if someone was playing a mean trick on me and planted some fake fish on the bottom. I realed in my fly and just sat there gazing at these stupid fish that I love to catch when out of no where a giant otter swam bye and snagged one of the fish and continued its fish eating journey down stream.

After sitting there for what seemed like a long time with my mouth wide open in shock I heard a tree snap in half and fall in the direction of where my truck was parked. I decided to walk back up and check out what had happened and to my surprise a tree got blown over by these crazy southern winds not more than 5 feet from my
truck!

After hooking my hat, a tree, watching a otter snag my fish, and having a tree almost total my truck I decided my day of fishing was over!!!

Well I can't wait for what next weekends fishing adventure will entail. Stay tuned.

24 degrees and a 14 inch rainbow

So I started my fishing out at 9AM when it was 24 degrees and 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground, my hands were completely frozen solid! I am defiantly not the greatest fly fisherman the worlds ever seen but I do know that when you can't move your fingers because its that cold outside, your probably not going to see any hatches going off! When I fish the fall river I prefer to use 6x leader and tippet, because those damn fish can see everything in that crystal clear river. I tied on a #18 olive hares ear to start my morning out.

When I fish the fall river and it doesn't matter what part of the river I go to I start out by walking up and down the stream looking for shadows in the water. You should never have to walk more than 50 yards before you see some nice fish looking shadows in the water. If you don't you might want to make an appointment with your eye doctor!!

I found a nice holding zone with about 20 good size rainbows at around 915 and I think the temp had risen about 2 degrees. I dropped my hares ear about 5 feet ahead of this school of fish and watched as it slowly moved towards the school when suddenly I felt the fly get railroaded by two different fish as it made its journey down stream. Unfortunately the collision of the two fish made it impossible to hook either one of them. My next few attempts didn't produce anything either but I knew by the fishes reactions I had the right fly on. I decided to change my presentation of the fly up a tad. I call it high sticking(some people just call it nymphing either way you only have about 15 feet of line out including your leader and tippet) I placed the fly right in front of these perched fish and as the fly passed right in front of the first fish he darted at my fly and hit it like a bull hits those stupid people on the streets of Spain in one of there bull runs. This beautiful rainbow trout darted out of the water trying to loose whatever had just snagged its jaw( by the way I de-barb all of my hooks even if the regulations don't mandate it. I want a even fight) unfortunately the fish won this battle, but little did he know I don't give up easily! The fight stired up the other fish so I decided it was time for a mid morning snack. By now it was nearly 1030 and was getting quite a bit warmer out, not to much longer and we should have a good hatch of caddis or maybe some march browns.

10 minutes later all the fish were back and feeding on the bottom. I decided to do the same thing again. After 5 seconds of that fly being in the water my pole was alnmost ripped out of my hands by a fish on a mission. After hooking this good size fish it tore off to the center of the river and making its way towards some down logs on the other side. I immediately tightened up my grip on the fly line and stopped the fish dead in its tracks. It jumped out of the water like a giant humpback wale and made almost as big of a splash if I do say so myself. After about 3 good minutes of fighting I had it in my net!!! A 14 inch rainbow with the most beautiful colors!!!

After releasing the fish and washing my hands I got right back to it!!! I hooked 3 more fish before noon but they all seemed to slip right off those de-barbed hooks.

By noon the fish no longer liked the hares ear. I switched to a black, green, red, and gold prince nymphs. None of them seemed to do any good. Right before I decided to change back to the hares ear since it was the only thing working earlier in the morning I noticed a hatch going off. From my previous knowledge of this rivers hatches I decided to put a BWO (blue wing olive) on.

My first cast was dead on with a nice presentation following a good line right down the center of the stream. I got 1 nice hit by what had to of been a monster fish! I stripped it back in and cast to the same place and this time I hooked the bastard but for it to only snap my small 6x line with one good jolt to the opposite side of the river.

I plan on going out to the Fall again tomorrow as long as it doesn't snow or get to windy! Ill let you know how it goes.

Fishing the Fall River Tomorrow

Im extremely excited to go fish the Fall River tomorrow. Its asmall crystal clear spring creek that feeds into the Deschutes river. Its one of the most beautiful rivers in Oregon. They've got Rainbows as big as 16 inches (thats the biggest I have ever caught on the Fall) and German Browns. Tomorrows supposed to be in the Mid 60's and should be an excellent day with some great hatches going off!! I'll let you know how it goes =)