I haven't had time to get to the vise to tie up any midges on hooks other than the 2488's I have been using, and today, it didn't matter. Things went as planned. Didn't miss any strikes, and no hooks got straightened out. That alone made me happy.

I only fished for a total of 25 minutes today. I drove all the way up the river seeing nary a rise in the obvious spots visible from the road. So on the way back down the river I decided to stop at one of my favorite spots that is a little off the road and see what if anything was happening there. It didn't take long to see why this is one of my favorite spots. I peeked through the willows and spotted 6 feeding fish both upstream, and downstream of my entry point. In the short time I had on the water I was able to target three of those fish and I fooled AND landed two of them. The last fish was still stubbornly feasting on midges as I had to drag myself out of the water needing badly to get back to the office. That was a hard one to do but I knew I could waste a lot of time on that fish if I stuck around. There were so many naturals on the water it was not just a matter of getting the pattern right, but having the fish pick mine out of all the available food.

The first fish was a nice 20" Brown sitting in a seam across the river just on the other side of a nice sized rock. This fish did not fight at all. I landed it in about 5 seconds. I was only casting from maybe 15 feet away and so as soon as I hooked up I just drug him over and he happened to just slide right into my net.



After releasing this fish I noticed another fish feeding about 5 feet in front of where I caught this fish. I decided it would be fun to try and pull two fish out of the small seam so I made a try for it. It only took a couple casts and I was again hooked up. This fish was much different than the first. It took off downstream busting up a pod of three fish that had been sipping regularly then it turned upstream, around a big boulder and slugged it out in a deep hole behind another big rock. I was flabbergasted at how hard this fish was fighting but when I got it in close I saw why. It was not one of the usual suspects on this river but was a nice fat 15" rainbow. Of all the fish I caught this last year here this is only the second rainbow I have caught. It is amazing how much harder this smaller fish fought.



So no straightened hooks, no missed strikes, it all went as planned today. Another great day with the midges.