November Slam

Well, so much for only being off the river for a month. As it turned out, it was more like two, really long, painful months. So when the stars finally aligned, and I was laying in bed the night before, I couldn't sleep. I'm pretty pathetic like that.

Having tossed and turned the entire night, I was up early and my stupid ass was out the door and on the road by 4:45 am, with two months worth of stories, pictures and scenarios whirling through the recesses of my head like a category 5 hurricane.

Needless to say, I was the first one at the river that morning...and the first one to exclaim "It's f***ing COLD!" to no-one in particular (more than once). Yeah, I doubt the fish were feeling any sympathy for me - if anything, they were saying something like "Ah shit, that idiot with the scud is back AGAIN."

Flows (as expected) were down - and at the Family Pool (where I usually start the day) there was a nice, deep seam that had a lot of nice fish parked within it. So, being a man-child of ritual (and superstition) I started out with the Best Damn Scud Pattern. Period. My apologies to Fox sports.

And it didn't disappoint. One after another took that fly - with two of them being nice, large fish, which I got on video. I've posted the pattern because it's consistently proven itself deadly on a lot of tail-waters out here in the west - and it's just too good of a pattern to keep to myself.

Have I mentioned that I've caught more big fish on a scud than any other pattern? I have? Hmmm...

Anyway, the bigger fish were clearly visible in the seam, but what I didn't see, were quite a few smaller trout that were hiding along the sides. So, while trying to hit the larger targets in the current, I also managed to pull out quite a few of the smaller ones in the process. Scratch. A little bonus tossed in by the fish Gods.

By the time the sun managed to light the water, I had pretty much decimated that section so, as is my custom after the sun has risen, I changed out my fly. I chose to tie on a pattern that BIGERRFISH had sent me a while back - it is a well-tied fly, and an interesting change for me, being that I am not one to use flies with rubber legs and such.

I chose a shallow section of river, chock full of rocks with a lot of algae on the bottom - dark green, faster water, where I had seen an occasional flash, and tossed that fly down the middle. First cast, and I nailed a nice little Bow. This was turning out to be an epic late-November day.

After that, I wound my way upriver - but with the lower flows, there wasn't a lot of big targets to aim for. I spent the afternoon hitting a few smaller fish in some flats - and pulled a nice brown from beneath a boulder. About 1 pm I decided to start working my way back down the opposite side of the river, and found myself at the top of the Ice Box, staring into a deep seam, at two very large fish (in the 23-26 inch range).

Now, this time of year, this part of the canyon will be in shadows by early afternoon, and it's tough to see into the deeper runs. And it's in these deeper runs that you're going to find a lot of the larger fish - so being there with the sun still lighting the water was a blessing. Looking up to the sky, however, I saw that I had about 30 minutes or so before the water went dark and, if I wanted the benefit of sight-fishing to these guys, then I needed to get busy.

It took me a while to find the drift - I was casting around a huge boulder into a current that was moving away from me - plus, I had a hard mend to the opposite side to try and get the drift to flow diagonal to where I was standing, and after about 20 minutes and several fly changes, I was starting to think that getting a perfect drift was going to be impossible from where I was at.

During the time I was trying to throw my line, another fish moved up and parked alongside the other two - and it dwarfed them. It was massive and my pulse picked up when I saw it park and start feeding. No kidding...I was filled with nervous energy and it took a lot of control to keep from blowing the deal. Rifle hunters know this feeling all too well and many a trophy has been lost to Buck Fever. Well, I had Fish Fever.

I had sunlight that was about to disappear, and I was frantically trying to roll through my flies to find something (anything) that these three actively feeding fish would hit - and then it occurred to me - I needed to adjust my weight. Damn it! I was so focused on getting the drift going that I had completely forgotten the other critical component: depth. I've been fishing for how long now? I should get my ass kicked for that.

So I pulled in my line, changed out my fly to a San Juan, and added some more split-shot. While I was doing this, the sun disappeared behind the canyon wall and the water went dark. Ah well...I knew where they were parked, and I tossed my line. First cast through with the extra weight, and I nailed him. How do I know it was the big one? I just knew.

When he took off, it felt as if my line were attached to a dump truck - and he ran like a bat out of hell, making a total mockery of the drag that my reel was attempting to apply. And he ran upriver - under the boulder to my right and out the other side....my line dragging along the rough surface of the rock...and there was nothing I could do but wait for the inevitable.

As I sat there putting on a new section of tippet, split-shot and fly, I thought about how different it would have been had that tub ran downstream instead of up. To the left, the Ice Box is open water with relatively few obstacles - and with lower flows, it would be the ideal place to try and subdue a monster.

Yeah, what-if. Oh well, there is a 26-30+ inch fish in that section of the river with my fly in it's mouth, and I'm ok with that. After I retied my gear, I tossed a few more times in that stretch and managed to pull out a nice fish. I'm not big on blind-fishing, so decided to call it a day after that.

But what a day it had been.