Back in the Canyon...

...meaning, Cheeseman Canyon - an old familiar friend that can be a real tough nut at times. And this was one of those times. Stoopid tough nuts....

At least the weather reports were all pointing to a fantastic late summer day, with temps in the mid-70s and blue skies - and they were right. It wound up being a great day to be out and about tossing a fly (unless one forgets to put on their 'sun-scream'....Eva? Are you paying attention?).

I got up to the river early, with my much, much better-half planning on meeting up with me later in the day - but even at this hour, there were already quite a few folks there gearing up. I guess I'm not the only one that watches the weather.

So, I geared up as fast as possible, and walked the rolling mile to the water's edge, and lo and behold! there were a lot of fish in the river - and they all seemed to be actively feeding. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

I already had an RS2 tied up from my last outing, so I tossed that their way - and shortly there-after, wound up hooking a little fella - about 8 inches or so. Didn't even see the guy...and I must have got him at the end of my drift - apparently I set the hook as I went to retrieve my line.

After that, I focused on the tubs that were parked in a deep seam in the middle of the river, and wound up striking out with the RS2. So I switched over to BDSP and the first cast through them, I bagged myself a nice 20 inch Bow.

Turning on my camera, I saw that I had about 10 minutes of juice left for filming, so I quickly got some footage and switched over to the GoPro for an underwater shot - only to find out that the batteries were missing from the camera. Ah yes, the pitfalls of having a 6 year old in the house with a need for batteries to run all of his goodies. No underwater shots this time around.

After the release, I went back to the well for another shot (actually, quite a few shots) but the fish left in there had no interest in the scud - and not wanting to change out yet, I walked a little way down-stream and saw a beauty of a fish parked beside a rock.

After a few casts to get the drift down, I wound up rolling this one as well - not as fat as the first one, but longer, and he looked real nice in the net (you know what I'm talking about).

Before the sun lit the water like David Hasselhoff in the middle of a weekend bender, the scud was once again the go-to fly. I bit into one more sub that wound up breaking my line...and then everything stopped.

Seriously, once the sun came out, it was if a switch had been thrown and the fish shut down.

One fish, in particular, was in a nice seam, maybe a foot below the surface. The drift was so perfect that even Stephen Hawking could have made it with little effort. I threw everything I had at this guy and....nothing. Same with the next one...and the one after that.

Fortunately, it wasn't just me - throughout the rest of the day Eva and I spoke with a lot of folks, and they all said that it had been brutally slow - even a guide that I was talking to (out of earshot of his client) said that it had not been the best day to be on the river.

I only managed one more smaller rainbow (12 inches) on a Hare's Ear the rest of the day, and that one I pulled from a deep seam while blind-fishing.

Overall, it was a good day - I netted two awesome trout, and two wee little fish, and lost one sub - and given how slow the river was fishing to begin with, I think that's pretty darn good. Plus, I know that it will be picking up as autumn moves forward - so there's more to be had down the road.

Unfortunately for me, though, I am going to miss the entire month of October due to a brutal travel schedule and workload. Hopefully, Eva will be able to make it out to the river once or twice and, between her and all of the blogs that I follow, I hope to be able to 'fish' vicariously through all of you.

Here's to hoping that I can handle a full month and some change without throwing a line.