On the water, dawn till dusk

Its 6:30 in the morning, the air is a cool 55 degrees and a light drizzle is falling.  The forecast called for morning showers with sun in the afternoon, hopefully the second half will come true.   I'm on the road with jfflyfisher on the way up north to a couple new locations.  He has received a tip from a biologist that both locations contained wild browns, rainbows, and brookies.   Spirits were high, much to talk about on our long trip north.  Although this was our first time meeting up kindred spirits often mesh well and the ride was made to seem much shorter.


 After traveling through the north country for a bit we began to near the first site.  The point at which it crossed the road looked good, but the signs posted all the about the wood in the surrounding area did not.  These were not your normal posted signs but much more serious signs that promised to make your good day go very sour quickly.....oh well....time to move on the second location.


 Fortunately the second site held no such signs that promised awful things.  The water looked pretty good, time to get rigged up and on the water.  


 Soon after we were both trudging up the stream.  I had my standard dry/dropper rig on and proceeded to catch nothing.   After a bit jfflyfisher passed me and informed me he had picked up a few small fish already and one decent one out from under a large fallen tree on a small purple bugger.   I wasn't about to give up on my favorite combo yet so I trudged on.   I soon came upon a nice looking pool with a large root ball located against the far side that looked very fishy.  On my first cast something attempted to hit the dropper right of the bat, on the second he hit it again after a few moments, on the third attempt the dry was dragged back a few inches as he snagged the nymph again but again no hookup.


 By now jfflyfisher was waiting patiently behind me noticing I was on to something.  I motioned for him to come up and take my place before I put the fish down for good.  After a few cast his 2wt came alive in his hand and the battle was on!  It looked to be quite a decent fish.

 And it was, a quick shot and off he went, a true small stream trophy.

 


 This would end up being the best part about this place, after a lot more walking upstream all that was encountered was a lot of wheeler tracks in the sand and more beer cans than I have seen in a long time.   A few more small brookies came to hand and we took some time to flip some rocks looking for bugs.  We found a lot of large golden stoneflies after searching under less than half a dozen rocks.  We continued upstream for awhile longer hoping things would improve but the stream appeared to be much more well traveled than thought and wormed out.


 After this we headed back the truck and ate some lunch and to discuss where to head for the rest of the afternoon.  It was decided to hit another stream back farther south on the way home, a favorite of mine and one he had never fished.  


 After getting turned around once on the way there we finally arrived and rigged up again.  I got out my 3wt lamiglas and proceeded to bend the tip down to touch the butt of the rod.  I think jfflyfisher's eye's bugged out a little at that, its a fun little rod for sure.  


 It was time to do some rock hopping upstream.

Soon after we were into trout, lots of them. We were blessed with a few that were fully dressed up for fall that were kind enough to stay still for a few photo's.  

I have no tail...

 We continued upstream till about dark.  As I was sitting on a rock untangling yet another mess jfflyfisher appeared and informed me that a bear had just crossed in front of him.  That was our hint to head on out.  A short time later we were breaking down the gear at the truck in the dark and headed out to get some food.   Although we caught no wild browns or bows it was a good long day on the water enjoyed with fellow wild trout nut, doesn't get much better than that.