Dawn till Dusk

Yesterday was a last hurrah of sorts for my sabbatical.  I have gotten to fish a lot this last month, and Wednesday I planned to fish from dawn till dusk.  My buddy Matt joined me for the day, and we started off with a hike to this stream.

The water was moonshine clear and made for some extremely spooky fish.

Rock with marbling 

Matt getting his cast on

The scenery was awesome and the fishing was ok.  We both landed five or so fish.  The fish below was the biggest of mine.  

All the fish brought to hand were tiny. I did see some bigger fish, and hooked up with one that might have been 8 inches or so, but either the fish were small, or only the little idiots where dumb enough to eat our flies.  We used caddis, ants, stimulators, hairs ear birds nest, and hoppers.

A little trib.  Looked like brookie water

Mouth of the trib where I took a dip.  

After hiking upstream and fishing the gorgeous water, we decided to hit up the pig trough that is the Davidson on the way home.  I had caught about 5 fish, and Matt had caught 1 as the light began to lessen, and the crowds dissipated.  In a determined mood, I turned to Matt and told him I wanted one more fish for my sabbatical, then headed upstream a few yards.  About 10 minutes later, I landed this skinny 18 inch rainbow.  Thank you Jesus!

Did I mention I fish pantless? 

I handed my rod to Matt after he snapped the picture above, and told him to use it since the two flies I had on seemed to be producing.  After a few strikes and 15 minutes, Matt hooked into a nice one.  It probably took 10 minutes to land, and he played the fish like a pro on that 6x tippett.  

Behold!  The Fatty 22 inch bow.

Point.

After this, we decided we should just leave.  Even though we had another 30-45 minutes of light left, it seemed fitting to walk away with our last casts leading to bent rods.  We were both fired up about Matt's fish.  I did a silly jig and hollered. There was some personal satisfaction from tying the fly he landed the fish on, and I get stoked seeing any friend lock into a trophy fish.  I mean, off course some carnal part of me wanted to catch the biggest fish,  but the wiser part of me knows that on this day, it was more exciting and rewarding to see Matt land his fist big trout.  

Thank you Davidson river, for giving us common folk our free "private like" stream (where there is never any privacy).