A Hopper of a Good Day

At the end of a day of fishing foam hoppers, this is what you like to see:

A well-loved hopper

Teeth marks all over the foam show that it spent time in the mouth of many fish, and so it was today. The most amazing day of hopper fishing I think I have ever had.

It started with a text from Tom and Rob Thursday night with pictures of a couple fish they'd caught that day. Friday was scheduled off for me, but I was planning on working some overtime. The text immediately started me thinking about an alternate plan.

My sweet wife readily agreed with my What-to-Do spinner, so I was up at 4:15 am the next morning on my way to the stream. 

In contrast to last week, it was only 50°F when I arrived and there were no other cars present. A perfect morning. Fished the Morrish hopper, pink body, all day, with the occasional switch to a bugger in some of the deeper runs. Up until the early afternoon, it was a decent day on this stream. About six fish to hand, all on the hopper, the largest a fat 18 or 19-inch rainbow, and a couple nice ones lost. I saw my hopper disappear into the mouth of one in the 20-ish range, but the hook didn't stick.

Then something happened and the next hour was crazy. Huge rainbows started attacking the hopper with reckless abandon from their hiding places under the grassy bank. 

No need for the hopper to be floating right in the grass. If it was within a foot of the clump of grass on the bank, a fish would dart out, its back out of the water, and pounce on the fly. Over and over and over.

In a 150 yard stretch of bank, I had I think ten fish, eight of them 20 inches and outrageously fat. 

The magic bank

It was so silly I lost count, but I have those I took the pics of plus the one that ran a circle around me and broke off plus the one that broke off when I was trying to get the fly unhooked from the net plus the one that got off when I was trying to net it plus the one I left with a fly in its mouth when I popped too hard on the hook set when it exploded on the fly (amazingly only happened once). You get the picture of how crazy it was. 

I fished a little more after that amazing hour, found a few more smallish fish, and decided to call it a day. A hopper of a good day!