The Trout, the whole trout, and nothing but the trout

 Rick visited his home waters this week and I was able to visit The Creek (my home waters) this week as well.  While I didn't have the numbers or size that he did, I did have solitude and the intoxicating aroma of the mock orange and wild roses that filled the air in this incredibly special place.

A beautiful redband rainbow

I went Tuesday morning with Don and we traded off casting/catching.  He caught the first fish in the first hole after very few casts--we were off to a good start.  Grass encroachment was much greater than usual for this time of year, making casting challenging.  That coupled with branches led to several "power plays" with the unfortunate fisherman who got hung up having to watch helplessly while his partner catches fish while he fishes his fly out of the tree--or even worse has to tie on a new one resulting in a multiple-fish penalty!

The worst part of the day was breaking the tip of my 3-weight rod halfway through our day.  I either hit a branch with it or broke it trying to get a fly out of a branch.  I'm not sure which it was, but I do know it was sad.  We actually didn't keep count, just enjoyed the fish who so willingly came up to the fly.  We thanked them and released them to be caught at some future date.

Thursday afternoon I went with Garn and Sue, long-time fishing partners with whom I've enjoyed many hours streamside.  After Garn went to his wildlife camera to download images (got a cougar around midnight one night this week!) we separated and each of us went to a section of the creek to prospect for trout.

I had executed a repair on my broken 3-weight. I used my orthodontic skills and mended the break with a small length of 0.018 Elgiloy™️ wire, looped at each end to tightly encircle the rod on either side of the break, heat treated it to assure maximum springiness, and used Transbond XT™️ to cover the wire and encircle the rod to have a smooth transition around the repair and assure the line wouldn't hang up anywhere as it passed through that area.

The 3-weight worked great, the fish were cooperative, and while the grass and trees claimed more than an ordinary quantity of flies, it was a 92-fish day for me.  Lots of small ones, but they will have lots of grasshoppers to feast on this summer so should be much bigger by fall.  I'll have to do regular population surveys this summer to assess their growth rate . . .