Missouri River Brown Trout
It wasn’t the first cast of the night, but, it was the first cast to this fish. I had a couple of fish feeding downstream of me and I took a couple of casts at them with no luck.
I stepped back and scanned the river, watched a beaver swim through the pod of fish that were rising and then finally swam upstream. I was thinking that every fish within 100 feet of me would be done feeding for the night, but I was wrong.
I heard the fish eat before I saw it. It was tucked tight to the bank, strategically under an overhanging willow eating constantly. I instantly fell in love with this fish because it gave me the oppurtunity to cast towards the bank, and leaving me plenty of room for my backcast.
I stripped out twenty or so feet of line and cast upstream knowing I would be well short of the fish to get a good measure of how much line I would need to get to its feeding lane. I stripped two more times, marked a spot four feet upstream of where I kept seeing that big head come up and cast. The fly landed right where I wanted it and the fish took it without breaking rhythm.
The fish fought hard, tailwalked a bit, jumped, bulldogged, and finally came to hand. He took the X-Caddis I was using as an indicator right in the side of his mouth. After a couple of quick pictures he was swimming back to his home.
Great way to start the night, and a great way to break in the new Winston BIIIX. Which I must say is a mighty fine fishing rod.
I caught a couple of other fish tonight, none of them as sweet as the first one. Both the X-Caddis and CDC Caddis Emerger were favored by the fish almost equally. It doesn’t seem like the fishing is going to get bad anytime soon, but to be sure, get here as soon as you can, and make that first cast count.—Matt