Report from July 8,9,10 on the Sky: Not my year. Not yet.

So far, my fishing adventures this year haven't been that good. Many have been in excess of bad as well. There has been good days too, but last year my success levels were drastically higher. Maybe it's because of the higher water making access to bank fishing worse, some of my favorite holes being closed off as "private property", dumb luck, or untimely mistakes.

The past two weekends have yielded two broken fly rods and about four fish (trout) that I've had to work long hours for. This weekend ended up being a bit better, but really only because I didn't break anything.


Anyways, on to the report. I don't like Reiter and feel like fishing there is more like "wishful thinking" with some tactic involved. And I hate crowds. I hoped for a turnaround of luck Friday night after work, and explored some new water.

I've been looking to find a low-traffic, fish holding run this entire season, and finally after days of hike-ins and climb-ins leading to non-fish-holding water, I was able to find a likely looking area, and right on the seam, my float disappeared.

It was one of those "I know there's a fish in there" spots. He ran straight for me, and I never got a feel for him until he was about ten feet from me. I had hooked my first summer steelie of 2016, and after a jump and a long run, I felt the sickening loss of connection and the mellow drag of my float back on the water surface. 0/1 to start the year, just my luck. He was a good 9-12lbs? Good fish, never got a great look at him up close. There were lots of chrome fish moving through the pool but they were moving, not holding and biting.

Saturday I returned, got soaked by an impending monsoon, and the river blew out due to a slide up by index or on a feeder creek. Vis started at about 3 feet and dropped to less than 1 in about fifteen minutes of me being there. I tried bigger, darker jigs and flashy metalware, no love. Sunday I came back to a beautiful green-blue river and went all in at the same spot, 12-9:00. Bad move, no luck. Should have moved on.

Thus ended the weekend. I did manage to catch a Bulldog and a 'Bow doing other stuff, but overall, I couldn't get it done. Time to keep exploring I guess. For your viewing pleasure, and additional two fish from a couple weekends ago have been added up top. Bulls: 24" and 20", Rainbows 16" and 14". All CnR.

The hunt continues.

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