Rain, Wind, and Trout

Last Sunday, Boyd Robertson, a friend at church, asked if I wanted to go fishing on Saturday. He wanted to check out Big Four Lake, a small, fly-fishing only pond along the Tucannon River east of here. If that didn't pan out, we could stop at the T where we can almost always find some trout. When Friday came, the forecast for Saturday was rain all day, heavy at times, with winds 20 to 30 mph. Not a good forecast for fishing, but since you are reading this, you know that we decided to go anyway!

At 6 AM when Boyd came by, it was steadily raining, but no W. Picked up a pair of #6's at McD's on the way out of town to make certain it would be a good day. Rain all the way to the lake, but still no W. A short hike brought us to the man-made pond that every year is stocked with larger fish and managed as fly-fishing only water. We were hoping to find some good-sized fish looking for a few last morsels before the winter freeze, but it was pretty slow. I was fishing a balanced leech (olive or black, size 12) that I had tied the night before, hanging under an indicator. My first take was subtle, more like bumping across some weeds, but after lifting the rod to set the hook, the rolling, splashing, pink-sided hog quickly dispelled that thought. I got it on the reel, but then it dove and the barbless hook quickly came free as he spun round and round in the weeds near shore. It was a nice fish, probably in the 18 to 20-inch range. Over the next hour and a half, I hooked two more fish and had one other take down. One was 13 or 14 inches and also got off in the weeds, the last one was 16 to 17 inches and made it to the net. 

Big bow from Big Four

Boyd had one take down that broke his dropper on the set. Other than that, there was not much action. The fish were either hunkered down, or there may have just not been that many left from the planting at the start of the year. With the wind starting to pick up, we decided it was time to visit some moving water that rarely disappoints. 

Driving back over the hill, the rain began to fall harder, and the wind began to blow. We parked at my usual spot alongside the stream, which was still running low from the summer despite the rain. Looking down on the stream full of so many memories, my heart always races with anticipation of the first cast, the first drop of the indicator, the first fish. With the wind, there were leaves everywhere, on the bottom, floating down the river, flying through the air, but it didn't interfere with fishing. I started with the psycho prince, caddis green, size 14, and picked up a nice little rainbow pretty quickly, so I tied on the size 18 psycho as a dropper, which ended up catching most of my fish. After starting with a small leech, Boyd also tied on a pyscho and soon we were both catching fish, ranging from 2 to 10 inches, most in the 6 to 9-inch range. 

Not so big, but still pretty

We had the river and all the surroundings to ourselves, as no one else was crazy enough to be out in the blustery weather. At times we could look upstream and see a whirlwind of leaves, other times our line would lift off the water from the wind. But we still caught fish. Plenty of them.

I called Carlynn as we were leaving for home, and told her it had poured rain all day with howling wind. She responded that she hoped we still had a good time. I told her I hadn't even noticed it; we were catching fish. Beautifully colored rainbows that brightened the blustery day.