Chasin' Colorful Char Is All

What at first sounded like a muffled motor, perhaps an unseen camper's generator, running somewhere down in the trees below upon closer inspection turned out to be the roar of water spilling from the relatively flat, benign meadow into a narrow boulder-strewn chute. Knowing the white and tea-colored, roaring malstrom offered no chance of tempting even the hungriest brook trout to take a swipe at our flies without further ado we opted out.

Later, swinging a pair of soft hackles in the flat calm behind the beaver dams in the meadow, we took turns hooking colorful brookies almost at will. Considering that a 12-incher in this stream puts it in monster class many, no, better make that most anglers couldn't be bothered. Laughable, flat out insane, why would you want to...

But then, why would we not? Brookie fishin' suggests solitude, scenic, simplistic, surprise, serenity, stunning, stimulating, spirited and more. And all that wrapped-up in one nifty package, hell, can't beat it... 

      

Starting to Mold

I used to bitch and moan "too damn hot and Sunny" ad nauseum but...Will solemly swear never again if you rain and snow gods promise tocall off the deluge for at least a couple days. Yes, I know here in the high desert, the semi-arid west needs all the water it can get but...Do we really have to get it all at once? We worried all winter, at least I did, how could it ever snow and rain enough this spring to keep our rivers and streams from drying up this summer...

Well, at least for the time being any worry seems unfounded. Ever since the beginning of May we've been getting dumped on big time. Judging the forecast for the next week or so no end in sight. Nearly bare mountain tops a month ago are now winter white. Yesterday even the surrounding foothills were once again snow covered.

Stream fishing is on temporary hold. All the area rivers and streams are raging torrents, chocolate milk indeed an apt descriptive. While mostly rain in the valleys, in the mountains snow continues to pile up even with June just around the corner. Should all that snow melt quickly you can pencil out stream fishing prospects for quite some time.

What all this has to do with the kestrel (sparrow hawk) pix? Well, nothing actually, just a little activity we engage in between rain and snow storms to, you know, keep the shack nasties at least somewhat at bay...   

At Least We Didn't Need Snowshoes...

With the big storm now history we decided to head to high country, more out of curiosity how much snow the mountains got than any real idea we might just get to fish...after all that moisture it seemed a given the little cricks would be ragin'. But surprise, surprise despite all--up top around Crystal Park there was still at least 6 or 8 inches and you could plainly see a lot had melted--we found them just about perfect. So naturally after having a look around we rigged up a rod and had at it.

The creek is about as brushed in as creeks get. Wall to wall willow thicket just getting to the water is tough finding room to cast at times a cruel joke. But poke around enough and usually we can find a pool or two and hopefully a willing trout or two waiting to nab our offerings.

We almost always rig just one rod and play it something like "three strikes you're out." Mostly because I was holding the rod when we found the first opening I got first dibs. But several good drifts with a soft hackle failed to interest the pools residents so we plowed on deeper into the brush. The next pool looked really good but with all the brush I could not get a decent drift so again we moved on...

The third pool proved to be the proverbial charm. Pitching the soft hackle upstream and letting it wash into the deep then slowly hand-twisting it in a brookie grabbed it but got off as I was manuvering it around the idiot dogs--bless them for their fishing enthusiasm but today the pair were a royal pain in the you know what. But the next cast another brookie grabbed the soft hackle and this time I managed to land it despite the dogs--hooray! 

Handing the rod to Gale she too landed a brookie and then I took a really skinny rainbow. Enough carnage for one spot we continued on. Switching gears we caught trout on a couple different soft hackles, a bead head fox squirrel nymph and Adams dry fly. Two hours and a mile or so upstream we'd had enough--cold, wet feet (why we didn't put on our hip boots who knows) way more than fed up with the damn dogs, and worn out leaping beaver ditches and willow thickets--called it good. 

Several yellow-bellied marmots, a couple sandhill cranes, one way up the crick at the base of the tall mountains, elk and moose tracks galore in the fast melting wet snow, a couple mule deer, two snipe and...hell, dogs excepted, turned out an OK day after all.