Playing with their food

p.s. next time I think I will go and see how "the streak"
is doing. He is a native I hooked into three times this
winter. He always get away in a spectacular manner.
Water flying, strikes on my retrieve two feet away from me,
jams my leader between two rocks, busts my flies off.
He is the most powerful fish I have come across in ages.
I need to visit him again. I wonder if he is a brown.

Got an hour and a hour last Thursday after work. I spent
an hour of it searching for "the streak". No sign of
him. One hopes he just migrated for the summer and
did not get himself eaten. I will search for him next
winter.

Anyway, after that I hiked to some rapids where I know
they (trout) like to Kármán gait. I was fishing with
a nymph and some split shot, but the water got lower
and warmer and instead of bouncing my split shot off
the bottom rocks, I was bouncing them of the moss on
the bottom. Not working too well. Caught a lot of
moss.

So after loosing a nymph in the muck/moss/rocks or
how knows what, I switched to a #12 Adams and started
fishing it as a dry fly on the surface. Now this raised
a problem in itself as in if it ever got out that I
actually fished a dry fly the way it was intended -- dry
on the surface film -- I would never hear the end of
it. If not fishing in the (water) "column", at least I
would still be fishing in the drift, somewhat. I'd
probably loose that argument. But, anyway, what they
don't know they, they can not give me a bad time for.
At least I would not be catching any more moss.

Anyway. No joy on the top of the film. I knew this
would probably be the case, as 90% of trout food comes
from the column and not the top of the film. In this
river, trout probably consume about 99% from the
column. (The water is fast and these trout like it deep,
so they are in no mood to waste the energy to fight
the surface current to take something from the surface.)
Oh well, I was still fishing.

Then something fascinating happened. My fly sunk.
Since I nearly always fish my dries wet, this was
not an issue for me. But, it was an issue for
my target obsession. Ah ha! I was simulating
a Baetis Mayfly Spinner who had lost their footing
and had been caught under the surface film.
And, I was back to drowning my dry flies and
fishing in the column (the drift). So, no
giving me a bad time!

Every cast, two to three boils at a time within
a second or two. Even my retrieves produces boils.
It occurred to me that they (trout) were actually
"playing with their food". The absolute, utter
ignominy! This had never happened to me before.
I was incensed! And completely unable to stop grinning!

I am presuming food was plentiful and they could afford
the energy to give me a bad time. (I am sure the group
will correct me if I am wrong on this assumption.)

Oh and "Bozo" learned really, really quickly how to keep
contact with his fly just under the film. (It is
different than keeping contact with a split shot under
the current.)

"Bozo" got to meet one ~9" rainbow and one ~11" brown.
The rainbow was a bit on the "looks challenged" side,
so he was a hold over from the spring planting.
The brown was obviously wild. The rainbow jumped
a bit. Neither one liked me too much and took a while
to meet. A lot of ~10' runs. Tons of fun.

Anyone notice that browns do not jump like rainbows?
(Catching Browns is very new to me.)

Anyway, I am still grinning. I may be strutting a bit,
but I ain't sayin'.

-T