Nunya!

Friday, July 1, 2011

There were some early fireworks for Tom, Rick, and Brian A today at Nunya. After the obligatory #7 and McDonalds (Rick was sure to order OJ today, no chocolate milk, and it payed off handsomely with the highest fish total of the day), we arrived at Nunya and found it running a little high, a little colored, but very fishable. What a place!

Short summary first, a few stories after the photos:

About 24 of these:

About a dozen of these:

Only one 24" monster like this:

A couple of these (the sketch effect is cleverly used to hide the fact that the fish took Rick's fly just behind the pectoral fin, one of two he skillfully caught this way on the day):

And somewhat thankfully, only 3 of these:

OK, a few stories.

Brian's monster (taped at 24"): Tom and I are coming upstream and see Brian fighting a stick in the river. But wait, it isn't just a stick! The fish wrapped the line around the stick and is now just sitting there looking up at Brian and laughing at him. "Hah!" says the fish, "The only stick within 30 yards any direction, and you let me wrap the line around it!" But what the fish didn't know was that Brian was delicately fishing with 2x 12-lb test tippet - With that tippet, he could lift the fish out of the water and swing it around his head if he wanted to. So the fish didn't break off and Brian was able to unwrap the line from the stick and land the beauty!

Tom in the first hole: Tom and Brian saw a splash near the grass in the shallows of the riffle at the head of the hole. Brian fishing in the next hole up directed Tom a little more precisely to where the fish splashed, and Tom's hopper briefly hit the water before getting sucked into the mouth of a nice brown. Always a good way to start the day!

Rick and the killer brown trout from Monte Python and the Holy Grail (or was it a rabbit?): Standing in hip deep water, Rick hooked one that proceeded to swim right at him. He was frantically pulling in line and lifting the rod to keep the line tight when the 18-20" brown leaps out of the water and uses the bend of the rod to perform the longest, highest jump Rick has ever seen from a fish of that size. It left the water several feet in front of Rick and hit its apex about even with him at shoulder height (at least two feet above the water!). As it passed by no more than a foot or two away, Rick watched the fly come free from the fish's mouth. After throwing the fly, the trout continued on its flight path and fell back into the water a couple feet behind Rick. I guess with only 3x - 10 lb test, Rick couldn't quite spin the fish around his head.

Details: Spring is 2 to 3 weeks late here as everywhere else. Vetch was in full bloom everywhere, water level and color was typical of early June. A few hoppers around. We caught a few fish on hoppers, but very little action along the banks, even with Tom's incredible casts and drifts along the grass banks. Most of the fish were on black buggers, Brian had an olive beadhead bunny leach. Quite a few follows without takes, a couple tried to take the fly literally on top of Rick's toes. We tried to walk through to the upper bridge, but ended up walking out to the road before we got to the bridge. It was a long way over to the road, added maybe 10 minutes to the hike compared to going back along the creek (but we didn't see any snakes). Speaking of snakes, they are creepy things, especially in the grass. None really rattled, even when harassing them a little. Still a little cool to be really active it appears.