As some of you know, my wife recently gave birth to our second daughter. I've been out of work the past two weeks to help her on maternity leave. I was scheduled to go back to work Tuesday, but due to a miscommunication with my boss, she assumed I wasn't going back until Wednesday. I spoke to my wife about it, and she told me to take advantage of it. Since I'd been helping her so much, she suggested I take a day for myself, especially since our oldest daughter was returning to daycare on Tuesday.
I normally know in advance when I'm going fishing and have time to plan where I'm going, but this decision wasn't made until Monday night. Since I didn't have any time, I made a split decision to go fish a very high elevation stream in a popular area that I've always wanted to experience. I'm sure many of you will recognize it.
Getting closer
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LoginAlmost there
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LoginThe trail down to the stream sure has some nice views
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LoginWell this is new
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LoginThe trail was a little overgrown and narrow, even though it was well trodden. I was waiting for a surprise encounter with someone or something around every corner, but thankfully that never happened. I did walk through a few spider webs, which was encouraging since I was likely the first person through there that morning.
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LoginFinally made it down to the creek, but boy was it low.
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LoginI crossed it and walked down a little ways until the trail started to leave the stream, and the gradient of the stream started dropping off severely. I found a path down to the water and decided to fish up from there.
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LoginCaught my first one out of his hole, which was surprisingly deep. I think it would have been over my head at 6'2".
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LoginI climbed up to the next hole where I caught two more feisty little brookies. They were smacking that little stimmy like it was the last thing they'd ever eat. The fish were small, but you couldn't beat the views.
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LoginAfter climbing up to the next hole, the gradient got a lot flatter, and the stream became very shallow; less than knee deep in most places. I could see plenty of small brookies, but they could also see me from a mile away in the slow, shallow, clear water. I decided to fish on up, only hitting any deeper holes I encountered and could approach stealthily, which wasn't many. I did pull this one out from under a rock in a nice little run just before leaving the stream to hike out.
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LoginI took another route back to the truck, which was a better trail, as it was more in the trees than out in the open under the hot sun.
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LoginBy this point it was only 12:30, and I still had a few more hours to fish. I decided to drive over the ridge and hit a trib of one of my favorite streams that I've never hit before but heard good things about. After hiking down into the gorge, I was happy to see a lot more water in this drainage. Approaching the trib, it didn't look like much. I'm glad I gave it a chance though.
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Login It was one of the more beautiful streams I've been on, and boy did it produce. I was pulling at least one out of nearly every hole.
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LoginAlright bug nerds, but kind of butterfly did I come across here?
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LoginI'm really ticked this one wasn't super photogenic. He was the prettiest fish of the day with very vibrant colors. I had to coax him out of his hole after he nosed my fly several times without committing. I've been trying to take several quick shots in hopes that at least one of them will turn out good, but sadly this was the only one I got before he decided he didn't like my company.
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LoginIt was a much needed day to destress and unwind after the past two weeks, however when I returned home to dinner in the crock pot and my wife and girls out front playing, the frustrations of the past two weeks melted away as I remembered I'm a very blessed man.