Rufus Woods, Some days…You eat the bear and other days the bear eats you or should I say the "FISH" eats you. Last weekend my wife decided that four months of remodeling our new home plus working fulltime without a day off was getting to me and suggested that I take a day off and go fishing. I immediately started planning for today’s RW trip. Weather report, check. I was going rain or shine, hurricane or typhoon. Get boat and truck gas, check. Pre-rig five fishing rods, check. Manage a trip to the tackle shop to see if there was anything new that I didn’t have, check. At 5:30 am I was welcomed to the highway by two inches of slush with heavy rain and snow falling. That was fine…I thought, I’ll just take it easy and I’ll be OK. I arrived at the Corps boat launch at 7:00 am and was greeted by low over cast clouds and fog with water that looked like glass, “NO” rain with a water temp of 36.6 degrees. I thought to myself…Today is going to be a great day. I launched my boat and immediately headed for the lower pens. Upon arrival I trolled a black woolly bugger wiggle fin combo. I trolled the lower pens for about an hour without success so I decided to head for the middle pens. I arrived at the middle pens and spent about an hour casting a black super rooster tail towards the shore below the pens without success so I decided to head for the upper pens. After reading all of the Rufus Woods upper pen reports this last couple of months I just knew today was going to be my day. I dropped anchor between the pens and the shore and began fly casting a woolly bugger. “Nothing” so I switched over to a Trout Pellet Fly and after about 10,000 casts I was rewarded with what I thought was a snag close to the shore. I let out some anchor line hoping that I could free said snag and was rewarded with a series of very large head shakes. With my six weight fly rod I commenced to do battle with the beast. He fought for what seemed like an eternity and finally knowing he was defeated by my unparalleled skills as an angler he rolled onto his side took one final breath and gave up…or so I thought. Turns out he had a surprise in store for me. Just as I was lowering my net he gave a small twitch causing me to misjudge my aim and he was free. He stopped, turned towards me and I swear he winked. He would have been my personal best on a fly rod for Rufus Woods and I’m sure he easily weighed all of ten or eleven pounds. As I was motoring back towards the boat launch I discovered that spitting my hook was not the end of my battle with the leviathan. As I was leaving the area of the upper pens I’m sure he messed with my boat motor. About the time I reached lone pine island my motor died. I checked everything and no matter what I tried I couldn’t get it started. I made the last fifteen miles of the trip to the launch on my 8hp kicker in a heavy rain. Soaked to the bone I made it in just over two hours. So…To you Mr. fish, I say you may have won the battle but you didn’t win the war. I’ll be back…

flyfisherguy

1/18/2010 9:30:00 AM

LOL great post Big D! Sorry you lost that monster, I've lost enough "personal bests" to know what that feels like! Hope the motor problem turns out to be something minor. 2009 was an expensive year for me and my Yahama 115hp outboard, spent over $3000 in repairs :-( But now it's running great and I'm hoping to do battle with some of those Rufus Woods and Chelan trophies later this year. Looking forward to hearing of your next encounter with "Mr. fish" with YOU the victor!
;-)

Tight lines my friend!

Malottguy

1/18/2010 11:54:00 AM

Make a battle plan and ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will get ole Mr. Trout. Great report :-)

Toni

1/18/2010 12:23:00 PM

That was a great read (report), I hope you get out there and get him soon!

Wirecaster

1/18/2010 5:01:00 PM

That report deserves an award, the story could be any one of us!

cant sleep

1/18/2010 5:04:00 PM

That was a killer report!! I feel your pain...... Thank god for the licker...

cant sleep

1/18/2010 5:05:00 PM

Kicker!! sorry

afk

1/18/2010 5:55:00 PM

Great story! Those are the fish one must return & triumph over. I got off the lake at dusk. What time did you come in?

afk

1/18/2010 6:58:00 PM

Great story! Those are the fish one must return & triumph over. I got off the lake at dusk. What time did you come in?

blufin loui

1/18/2010 9:55:00 PM

Woooo Hooooo, The BigD is back in action (fishing that is). Sorry to hear of your slow run down the river (brings back unpleasant memories), but the kicker saves another trip. Way to go on the big one. You have to be careful of those "Winking Whoppers" though. He Will be waitng on you next time, and now it's personal. LOL I'm just dying to hook up with one of the big boys on the fly rod, but havent done so yet. Last trip I broke out my new outfit for its first taste of RW, but alas, no takers. I'll just have to be more persistant. Hey BigD, be sure to sign me up for an autographed copy of your first book. (ya gotta write one) That was a great report. Hope your motor is up and runnig and we get to see ya on the water.

Big D

1/19/2010 1:53:00 AM

Hey flyfisherguy, blufin loui, afk, Toni, Rick Young & Malottguy, I’m not looking forward to spending any more $$$$ on my 115 Yamaha. Early last summer I paid $1000.00 for a new “Ignition control module” My mechanic says that mine was the first one that he had seen go bad in his fourteen years of working on Yamaha’s. I just figure it’s always nice to be the first at something. My motor died yesterday with the very same symptoms as it did last year so I’m hoping that I just got a bad control module. I got back to the boat launch at about 6:30 pm and the extra time it took me to get back yesterday gave me time to think up a great story for my wife about how I was going to put off purchasing a new pickup just so I could fix my Yamaha. “I want to make sure she doesn’t ever have to worry about me while I’m out on the water. So in essence I’m fixing my Yamaha for her. At least that’s how I explained it to her and I think she bought it. By the way, I received an email from “Mr. Fish” this morning. He’s doing a lot of trash talking, taunting me and calling me out. I haven’t replied to his email yet. One thing he doesn’t understand is that my life expectancy is about seventy five years and his is about ten, so I do have time on my side. If all else fails I can give his address to my friends here at WL.com and tell them that he called their mom’s bad names. Anyway, Thanks for all of your kind words.

Big D

1/19/2010 2:05:00 AM

Hey cant sleep, I think I'll go with "licker". It has a nice ring to it. But then again...It might be a little awkward explaining to my wife that the reason I was three hours late getting home was because I had to come home on my licker. Thanks for the kind words.

Dustin07

1/19/2010 1:29:00 PM

LOL good story. what a great way to celebrate the 4 months without a break + remodel job :P

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