After Bailey’s excitement at the fishing derby, we just had to head up to the river to take her fishing for real. We decided to head to a meadow section known as the “Meat Cutter’s” section. This section requires an easy walk to the river and the meadow is easy to negotiate. This section is hardly crowded (fully how a 10 minute walk from the road will do that) and is always good for some small trout.
Upon arriving at the river, I noted that the water levels were average and the water was in great shape. The river looked very fishable. The air temps were a little on the chilly side, but not quite cold enough to require a sweater. I know that with the past week of cold temps, the runoff has slowed considerably. when it warms up again, the rivers will blow out while the rest of the snow melts, but for now, this is all you can ask for int he middle of runoff season….great fishing conditions on a little freestone river.
Erin and I knew that while one was fishing, the other would be “fishing” with Bailey. Erin hit the water first, so I put a real lure on Bailey’s ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ fishing rod and proceeded to help her do some cast and retrieves. This held her interest for about a total of 4 casts. She suddenly became more interested in throwing handfuls of mud and rocks into the water.
That left me with no choice but to string up my rod and toss the line out a few times, but not before I tried my hand at the SpongeBob rod. Funny how you forget to cast with a spinning rod when you have been fly fishing for so many years. I quite trying before it came back to me.
There were a few bugs flying around, so I tied on an Indicaddis as the top fly and a #18 Copper John as the dropper. I was able to get about 15 drifts into a section of water before it was my turn to watch Bailey again. We moved upstream to the center part of the meadow section, and Bailey and I commenced the rock throwing festivities while Erin fished a little further upstream. Erin was actually able to raise a few fish on a “big yellow grasshopper” but all her strikes were from fish that were most likely too small to eat the fly and hook themselves.
At this point, Bailey mentioned that she was getting cold and wanted to leave. Bummer! I did not get to fish my next turn. I did notice many flying ants in presence and actually picked a few out of the hair of our dogs. Hmmm..an observation that may help the next outing be a success.