All Day Fishing

 Spent the entire day on the Eagle River.  Despite the strong sun on this cloudless day, it was utterly comfortable.   The water level was dramatically lower than when I my visit in July.  Nonetheless,  water temps were adequate and although very few fish were rising it turned out they were present in considerable quantities. 

When I arrived at the water's edge early this morning there was a major hatch underway.  Unfortunately,  the hatch was people.  7 people were already in the spot I'd selected and word was downstream was even worse.  Several people has their dogs with them who were eager to retrieve whatever it was their masters were constantly throwing in the water.  Why the circus?  Last Saturday in August.

I bit my tongue and set up a bit downstream of a guy who was nymphing a riffle.  He had a huge bobber such as a 5 year old might use and yet, he was nailing one fish after another.  I decided it wouldn't help to tell him nymphs don't work.

In the meantime,  I rigged up a dry-dropper and started experimenting with different nymphs,  none of which worked of course.   Mr. Bigbobber continued to catch small trout until he started getting serious strikes.  He had several hefty fish on but kept losing them.  Then, he hit The Big One and had a long dramatic fight with his hunting dog, standing next to him in the water excitedly coaching him on how to bring it to net.  Must have been close to 3lbs, a whopper brown.

Me? Nuttin.  I switched to dry flies because fish were rising now and because, well you know about nymphs.  BAM!  Fish on!  It seemed like a decent size but he was putting up quite a fight.  The hunting dog sat quietly.   Oh sure, no coaching tips for me eh?  It turned out to be a nice fat rainbow around 18 inches.  Worth waiting for!

Caught 2 unremarkable browns in the early  afternoon on dry-dropper.  Late in the afternoon,  I found a nymph the fish seemed to like.   Several strikes followed by a truly corpulent rainbow.  Gorgeous.   Took a while to revive him but he sat just a few feet away and sulked over having been caught.

Planning a hike in the AM and not sure about PM.  Campsite at Shrine Pass again but it being Saturday,  I was fortunate to get the last one.