Granny Puts on a Clinic

July 7, 2010

My legs were a little sore this morning. Granny’s were too that’s why she thought I should hook up the boat and float her down a river. And by the way, get my bike out so I could do an eight mile bike shuttle to start my day. So SHE could rest her legs! Ha!

I pretend to be abused but I love taking my wife down the river and I ride my bike nearly every morning anyhow so at least today I’d have a reason. My tackle is in disarray from my upcoming trip so even though it’s not the set up of choice, I grabbed the already rigged Ross Journey 7 ½ footer that I’ve been using small stream fishing. I packed it in the truck and away we went.

The bike shuttle was a dusty one but there was little wind and overall it was very enjoyable. When I got to Granny she had the boat ready to roll and we pushed off. The river, like most around here is too high to provide good fishing but nonetheless, it would be a nice relaxing float and perhaps we’d find a few hungry fish rising in the dirty water.

Things started very slow. The highlight for the morning was watching a family of magpies. The babies had just left the nest and were fun to watch exploring their new world. At about noon, I actually heard what sounded like a trout sipping a bug. There were some Pale Morning duns on the water. I stared in the direction of the sound and sure enough, the fish sipped again. It was game on.

Granny got a kick out of casting the short rod. It definitely took her a few false casts to adjust, but then she presented her thorax PMD beautifully in the direction of the sipping cutthroat. The way I was holding the boat, we were about fifty feet away so she had to really shake line and feed her fly to the fish. Then, as we hoped, the trout sucked down her fly and downstream he went. Frequently, the more subtle the rise the bigger the fish is. This was a prime example of this. When I first pointed the rise out to Granny she thought it was a little brook trout. I disagreed and when Granny felt the weight of this fish she admitted I was right. A few minutes later I netted a burley Snake River Cutty.

We only saw one more riser today and he turned out to be a rainbow. Granny got him too. He could be one of the best colored up rainbows of the year – truly spectacular! I plan to start painting him today. Most or our rivers are still at least week from coming into their own. When I get home from Europe the fishing should be incredible everywhere.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing web site