Fish of a lifetime...

Our guide was a scholar and a gentleman by the name of Will Blanchard of Animas Valley Anglers. He lead my father and I into a private portion of the Animas River in Durango, CO. It didn't take long to realize we were in for something special.

The sky was blue and the breeze was brisk. The rig included our good friend the Bead Head Prince nymph followed by teeny midge emerger. All this was about 7 or 8 feet below a colorful, yet very effective balloon indicator. Did I mention the #4 shot?

Drifts were long and deliberate. Nothing I would call overly technical, but there was a good amount of mending, stripping, and feeding going on. Dad hooked a couple of fish early on at the tail end of a nice pool while I stalked the big dogs at the top. No such luck for me.

Will decided to bring me upstream to "Sneaky Pocket"--deep, slow...never would have fished it properly myself (Thanks Will!) A few casts in I responded instinctly to a flash. "Could be a Sucker" remarked Will, "whoa..."

We saw it surface early on in the fight. It made 10 - 15 runs up, down, and across the current. I knew the fish was big, but how big? We had only seen it a couple of times, and each time was just long enough to get my heart pounding.

Dad made it up from his pool. He grabbed my camera and waited for the first sign of an "actual fish". By this time I was 20 minutes into the fight. I did not want to lose this fish. My shoulder was getting pretty tired at this point, but the same could not be said for the fish. A few more runs...Will did a great job of telling me to be patient--easier said than done.

Skillfully netted, the fight was over. Are you kidding me? What a fish...see for yourself:

Update from the Master...

Someday I will take a trip like my father is on right now--fishing his way across the midwest. I'll be meeting up with him in a few days to fish the San Juan River in NM, then make our way into CO and revisit the Dream Stream as it flows out of the Spinney Mtn. Resevoir.

I guess you could say...I'm a little excited.

The following was taken (without permission) from a recent message during my father's adventure...

Who would have thunk it....Oklahoma has trout....

Spent 7 hours fishing the Lower Mountain Fork of the Beaver's Bend State Park near Broken Bow (as in Choctaw nation) Oklahoma.

My oh my... could a day be so much fun.

Stopped at the fly shop near the river at 9:00 looking for a little guidance ... (in exchange for the customary 8 fly purchase, even though I have the flies already). Got a map from Sid Ingram, former navy Sonar Technican ... we chatted a little dots and dashes .... proceeded to the river formed by the spillway from the Beaver's Bend lake.

This spillway has lower flows than the power generating station which dumps it's water downstream from the Spillway creek portion. so the Spillway creates about 3 miles of very fishable water. I saw about 3 of it today.

Weather was pleasant, about 45 degrees, water was also 45 degrees when I measured at 2:00 PM. The stream below the spillway is a pretty steep grade, sort of like the Gallatin I think. But has the look of the North Branch of the Whitewater. Trees forming canopy over the stream in many places....

Used my 7 foot stowaway from cabela's . 4 wt with 4WF line and three different rigs. Dry Fly dropper worked early in the morning. Then fished a White BH wooly bugger like a streamer in the deep pools... and then in the afternoon a dry fly -- Griffith's Gnat and also a very tiny grey thing #22 with a small gray post. (ala Parachute adams)

I wish I was naming fish today... I started counting at about 10 and caught 40 more fish ... most were in the 9 - 12 inch range. But very fiesty....

Hooked two 15 inch football shaped rainbows on the White Wooly Bugger. They were really sweet. Also, caught a 17 inch Brown Trout .. very plump on a tiny Griffith's Gnat... you can imagine the delight of playing that one in the 4o yard pool. He went north and south a couple times. About 5 minutes of play in him. very nice fish.

Could I top it tomorrow? Well, I'll just have to see.