With nine straight months that Rick had brought a trout to hand, he and Tom made a late February exploration of another ditch in hopes of keeping the streak alive (all months of the streak have been posted on this blog except last May, which may have occurred shortly before the end of the short-lived, misguided ban by Governor Inslee on all outdoor activities including fishing at a private pond...maybe I'll post that trip sometime after the statute of limitations runs out).
We met not too early on a beautiful morning with enough wind to chill despite the sun, but never reaching the threatened gale, at least where we were fishing. We were exploring a ditch we knew held some very large fish from a couple online videos I had found, that while not sharing the location, had enough information that we were able to clearly ascertain where they were fishing. So we were on our way to explore and see what we could find.
As we began the walk in, Tom dropped in his October caddis under an indicator and promptly landed a nice, fat rainbow. However, the early promise was not sustained other than a nice rainbow we saw that jumped clean out of the water and a couple flashes and a hit on the swing for Rick a while later.
We covered a mile and a half of ditch with some decent water in places. Despite the worn trail and occasional piles of beer cans, there have to be more fish in there, but we couldn't figure it out today. Back at the truck, Tom found his very expensive net was missing, and decided to go back to look for it where he had squeezed through a bramble of Russian olives while I decided to check out a couple moving stretches upstream to search for just one trout to keep my streak alive. After finding nothing in the first two runs, I came to a third stretch of water and saw a large trout actively feeding in the water below. Climbing down the steep bank to the water's edge, I ran my fly through the stretch where the fish had been feeding but got no love for the black bugger or October caddis under the indicator. But just then the water upstream came alive with rises. A mayfly hatch had started and a number of smallish fish were actively feeding. I was just finishing tying on a 5x tippet and size 18 or 20 something or other dry when Tom arrived, having found his net. A toss upstream followed by a splash that made apparent the location of the fly I hadn't been able to locate after the cast landed was a missed opportunity. A few more casts watching more carefully for the tiny fly floating in the current, and this time I saw it disappear in a splash. The quick set was rewarded with this cute little rainbow that kept my streak alive. Ten straight months with a trout to hand...
We played around a little more in this run, where I missed a half dozen more on the dry and caught a couple more on a chironomid. Then we decided to call it a day. Not the big fish we'd hoped for, but any day outdoors fishing is a good day!
