TR - fast fishing trip (long)

I got to meet another ROFFian yesterday, Jeff Taylor. A while back Jeff
posted that he would be in the Boise area for a few days sometime in mid
April, and was looking for some info on fishing in the area. I sent him a
suggestion on some decent fishing within an hour of Boise, and we exchanged
emails. He wasn't sure if he would actually have any time to fish, but
would give me a call when he was in the area if he could break free.
About 11:30 A.M.yesterday I got a call from Jeff. He and his cousin would
be able to break away for some fishing that afternoon, and asked if I would
be able to give them some specific directions and an up to date condition
report. I responded that better than that, If they didn't mind waiting for
me to make the ~ 2hr trip ( the river is about an hour from where they
were ) I 'd meet them at 2PM at the store on the way where they could buy a
day license , and would show them the fishing.
Right after I hung up, it hit me that I was living in and talking about
Pacific Time while they and the meeting place were on Mountain Time. I
grabbed a quick lunch and hustled out the door, all the while wondering if
they would catch my error, and if we would actually hook up. When I got to
the store a little before 2 ( my time - 3 local time), I didn't see anyone
that looked like a couple of fishermen. I asked the clerk if she had sold a
fishing license to a Jeff Taylor she said that she had just come to work and
had no way to check the names of who they had sold licenses to, but that the
person on duty before her mentioned that he had sold a couple of day
licenses to two flyfishermen about an hour ago.I gave her my name, Jeff's
name, and a description of my vehicle in case they showed up, and I hustled
up the river to see if I could find them.
Over the next half hour or so, I asked each of the 30 or so flyfishermen
that were spread out along the 6 or 7 miles of fishable water if they were
Jeff Taylor, with no luck. When I reached the dam I turned around and headed
slowly back down stream to pick a spot to fish, having resigned myself to
the fact that I had screwed up and that we probably wouldn't hook up. I had
gotten about a mile when I see the driver of a pickup headed towards me
flagging me down. As I pull alongside the driver says "Hi Bob."
It seems that they had indeed arrived at the store and purchased their
licenses an hour before I arrived, but they had accounted for the time zone
differential, and were using the time to scout the river. They returned to
the store within minutes of when I left it, and we passed each other going
opposite directions, but at that time neither had a description of the
other's vehicle. When he got to the store, Jeff asked a gentlman at the
store if his name was Bob. The clerk overheard him and asked if he was
looking for Bob Weinberger, she told him what had happened, that he had just
missed me, and gave him a description of my vehicle.
I took them to a stretch of river that I knew held good numbers of fish
regardless of flow. I wasn't sure if the fish would be found in the
sections that are normally the best fishing at the current flow level,
since the flow has only been at that level for 4 days. On Monday the
irrigation district ramped the flow up from 11CFS, which it had been at for
most of the winter, to flows around 160 CFS.
I pointed out the honey holes of the stretch to them and suggested some
tactics to try, and told them to go ahead and fish whiole I suited up. When
I hooked a fat 16-18" Brown on my first cast, I just knew we were going to
have hot action. Unfortunately, I got careless as I was bringing it to hand,
and with one last lunge it snapped my 6x tippet to the size 20 Zebra Midge
it had taken. Also none of us had any more action for the next hour or
so,.finally Jeff caught a beautiful fat 15" Brown on an 18 PT, but no more
activity before they had to leave for family commitments back in Nampa.
Although the fishing was not red hot - we caught far more fish drinking beer
and BSing on the bank than we did in the stream - and our time together was
all to brief, it was a beautiful afternoon with excellent company. Jeff and
his cousin are "good pepole", and know their way around fly equipment and
trout streams.
Its unfortunate that they had to leave when they did, as in the hour of
fishing light that remained action really picked up. I hooked 8-10 fish in
that time - the smallest 13" and the largest 19".
My experience fishing with fellow ROFFians is now at a count of 3 - a number
I hope to grow significantly in the not too distant future.


--
Bob Weinberger
La, Grande, OR

place a dot between bobs and stuff and remove invalid to send email

Good TR....glad you were able to hook up.