Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Consolation prize!

Hunted morels for about 4 hours yesterday. Spring was well on its way here, several knee to waste high nettles, lots of old, mangy Verpa bohemica. Everything looked right, but, not a single morel was found. Luckily, I chose this spot because it was very proximal to some good steelhead water. I figured I might get lucky and get an early summer on the swing, if nothing else get some practice casting my new-to-me Sage 6126. I was fishing a type III and a sz. 4 Purple Green Butt, traditional style. I worked one large run and had several trout grab the fly, even landed one native winter steelhead smolt, chrome and fired up on its way to the ocean. I moved down to fish one small tailout before calling it quits and about halfway through, in the middle of the swing I got a great grab and it stuck. It felt like an old winter should, no screaming runs but it did have a lot more power than I would expect for a spawned out hen. She was good sized, maybe 31-32", had some minor wounds on her body just in front of her tail, from digging a redd I'm sure, but was in otherwise excellent condition, especially her fins. I was expecting it to take some time to revive her but as soon as I pointed her in the right direction she was gone with power.

A bonus fish like that is tough to beat!

1 comment:

Langdon Cook said...

A nice consolation indeed! It pays to plan ahead. I see some redside fishin' and morel huntin' in my future. Maybe even tomorrow, if river levels hold. Good work on yr recent 'shroom finds too. We're just getting going in that dept.

-Finny