Another Blue Line and a Great Black Fishday

Sunshine, solitude, lots of small, wild bows with the chance for an occasional lunker, another new stream (#128 for Rick - we need Tom to add up and report his total if he isn't too embarrassed how far behind he is - but then again, I have nine extra years on him...). Trash talk aside, it was about as perfect of a Black Fishday as you could get.

The plan was to avoid the Ford and check out a new blue line on the map, where rumor had it some trout could be found. With morning temperatures in the teens predicted in the Columbia Basin, we chose a late 8 am start when the sun was full up to give it a chance to warm up. After the obligatory #8 at McDs, we were on our way. It was a balmy 24°F when we left, then as we approached our destination, a few fog banks appeared, and the temp dropped to 18°F. Memories of Black Friday on the Touchet two years ago, but by the time we arrived at our destination, the sun was shining through the mist, making the 18°F seem a little warmer. 

"Prime" trout water; doesn't look like much, but any water full of trout is prime to us!

Looking down from the bridge, we immediately spotted a few small trout, then more and more. Just upstream a school of thirty or so small rainbows could be seen, and fish were actually rising with the temp at 18°F! It was going to be a good day! I tried my hand at catching one off the bridge, but that would have to wait for Tom at the end of the day. Dropping into the stream, Tom fished below, I fished above. Trying small nymphs first, we each caught a couple small, pretty rainbows, but soon switched to stripping small buggers after Tom caught one about 16" on a black conehead bugger.

First rainbow from Stream 128 for Rick

I found a few more willing fish upstream, but they were easily spooked in the shallow, small water. I turned around and headed down to catch up with Tom, and quickly found the technique to avoid spooking the fish was to swing the bugger straight downstream. Hard to hook them, maybe one hookup for every three or four strikes, but we still caught multiple dozens of fish, Yep, it was a good day. Walking down by some still, deep water I saw a number of large fish, 16" to probably more than 20" in with a school of smaller ones. Stripping the bugger through them, I could only get interest from one little guy. But that would change when coming back up with Tom later....

I finally caught up with Tom, and we worked our way down, side by side, catching fish after fish after fish. In every run there were schools of dozens that would dart every which way as we waded through.

The rare solitary fish in this stream; we saw them in schools of dozens in every run

At one deeper hole, we surprisingly found no love for the buggers. Tom walked right up to the top of the hole, and saw a school of forty or fifty sitting right there below him in plain sight. In a brilliant moment of inspiration that can only be attributed to instinct, since Tom has only fly-fished since he could stand on two feet, he brought out the San Juan worm fly and began to dip fish like the primal bait-chucker (minus the styrofoam cup of worms, of course). And immediately, he had a fish. Then another. And another. After about six in a row, I got out the camera to catch this new and effective fly-fishing technique on camera - stand in plain sight of the fish, drop a worm-like fly in front of them, watch them eat it, then pull them in. 

Mostly small, he did entice one of the larger fish in the school to take his worm, I mean, fly...

Tom and a nice-sized rainbow

We continued fishing until the sun became low over the steep banks of the stream. Several hours of fishing, and we had only covered a little more than 1/2-mile of stream. And we had another access point to check out on this day of exploration.

I love finding trout in unique, out of the way places

On the walk back, we dropped into the stream to see if we could entice one of the big boys I had seen to give us a fight. I tried drifting a bead through the run, while Tom returned to the worm. No love for the bead, but Tom saw one of the big ones spook as we approached and head under the grass right at his feet. He dipped the San Juan Worm into the water, and watched as the monstrous fish approached the fly, opened its mouth, and sucked it in. He set the hook and the beast took off upstream, took his line into some floating tumbleweeds, and came unhooked. How to experience both exquisite joy and pain at the same time!

Back at the truck, Tom caught his obligatory fish off the bridge, and we were on our way to check out access at another point on our way home. As the road turned from paved to gravel to dirt, we were not met by any "No Trespassing" signs, and ended up on a bluff above the now larger stream. The sun was nearly to the horizon, and Tom had taken his waders off earlier, so we debated if we should check it out now, or another time. Well, we were here, and I was still ready to fish, so I found a path down to make a few swings while Tom watched from the bluff above. First hole, a good tug after a few swings, then the next cast, this nice fat rainbow.

A good little rainbow - note Tom on the bluff above

A little further down, a good, solid two pulls on the swing, but no hookup. That was a solid fish, but then nothing more. Tom was gracious enough to let me check out the likely run upstream. Not enough light to see how deep the water was, but it looked nice. Casting across and swinging/stripping the black bead-head bunny, I had a good hit, but again, no hookup. A few casts later, another, this time solidly hooked. As the fish jumped, even Tom from the distant bluff could see it was a good one. So as the sun was sinking below the horizon, I landed this fat, 18-inch rainbow, a fitting end to one of the best Black Fishdays ever!

A fat beast to end the day

I had visited this stream with Rob years ago when we first moved to the area, but couldn't remember for sure if we had caught fish in it, so it wasn't on my list of streams. Today definitely cleared that uncertainty up with an exclamation point. We will be back to visit this beauty again.