May 25, 2009

Opening Day

     I don't often miss opening day of fishing season. Memorial day weekend of 2009 was no different. I set out to bend the old rod. The hardest part about being in Southeast Idaho is picking where to go since there are so many good options. On this particular day I couldn't decide between Warm River and Henry's Lake, so I decided to fish both of them!
     I started the day at warm river, hoping to tie into one of the monsters that live there. The sunrise was one of the prettiest I had ever seen. Pretty soon the bite was on! I was catching a fish consistently about every two or three casts. I was feeling pretty confident for about an hour, but then they just stopped biting and I couldn't figure out why until all of a sudden an otter popped up not ten feet in front of me and right where I had been catching fish! He looked at me and whistled. I whistled back but my otter must be rusty because he took off as quickly as he appeared. I guess he made the fish nervous enough that they weren't hungry any more so I called it a day for that spot. In about an hour and a half I had landed 9 rainbows and browns up to about 15 inches which wasn't too bad, but still no big fish.
Warm River Sunrise
     I continued north to Henry's Lake. I hadn't caught a fish there on a fly rod before. I guess when it rains it pours! I paddled around in my pontoon boat for a while stripping wooly buggers (which probably sounds like a questionable activity if you don't speak 'fly-fisherman') without any success. after doing this for an hour or so I noticed a big line of fishermen on the shore who appeared to be catching a lot of fish. When one of the guys from about the middle of the line packed up and left, I decided to take his spot. I really hate combat fishing, but on this occasion I was glad I joined. I assumed my spot with the guy on my left about 10 feet away and the guy on my right about the same. I took about two steps out into the water and realized that within a rod length of me were probably 30 fish! I tried stripping my wooly bugger, but soon realized that there were way too many fish and I just kept snagging them so I put on a midge and an egg pattern under an indicator and immediately started catching them the right way. I didn't think to start counting how many I had caught until noon. By the time I left at 3:30 I had landed 35 fish, so all in all I probably landed somewhere between 60 or 70! I can't say it was difficult or technical fishing but I'll take easy fish over hard fish any day! I didn't get any of the real giants that Henry's produces but I broke the two foot mark twice, and on a fly rod no less!
First two footer of the day!
Another two footer! - Note my numerous neighbors.
Humpback cutthroat

2 comments:

  1. Great fishing - Dad is jealous! He's going to Spring Valley tomorrow though.
    Love you
    Mom and Dad

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  2. wow, those are some honking big fish! Curt is wayyyyyy jealous!

    ReplyDelete