Long time no post. I broke my two month plus leave of absense from my favorite local lunch spot as a celebration of sorts for having made it through one more year of life. Yeah I am a year older today, so I am thinking I should be a year wiser. We will see.

A couple days ago I headed up the river just to scout things out and make sure the fish were off the spawning beds and that things were getting back to normal up there. Sure enough despite some recent cold temps and a whole lot of snow I found a nice pod of fish up sipping midges in a foam line. I didn't bring my rod on that outing, only a camera, but I knew that in a couple days I would be heading back up armed with the long rod.

Here are a couple of the pics I took of the river last Friday:






So today I made it official and gave myself a little b'day present and headed out for a couple hours. Today's weather is not quite as nice and sunny as it was on the day the above pics were snapped. In fact it is down right cold and foggy. The drive up took a bit longer than it usually takes but I pulled off the road at one of the runs I frequently find fish up feeding even in the cold of winter. Sure enough I quickly spotted a smattering of rise rings and then caught the flash of a white mouth as a nice fish nabbed a bug right below me as I stood high on the bank. I quickly rigged up, tied on my favorite transitional midge pattern and waded in the frigid waters. My very first cast right down a foam line seam brought a big nose up as it slurped down my fly. I set the hook but the small bug came free. Still it was encouraging to get the blood flowing so soon on a frigid December day.

I continued moving up the run looking for more noses. I missed another take a few minutes later and was starting to think to myself that it was cool to see those fish take your fly but it would be even better to feel a prolonged tug on the other end.

Time was dwindling and I needed to get back to the office when I noticed another fish working very subtly in the nervous water right below a small riffle. One more cast. And it paid off. The take was barely noticeable but it didn't escape my straining eye, and I brought my rod tip up bringing a burst of activity on the other end. Soon I netted a skinny 17 inch December Brown. While not an exceptionally beautiful fish, I was none the less satisfied with the chance to get out and find a dry fly slurping trout on this cold and foggy day.