Another great day with finstalker and his local water, well half a day as he wasn't able to meet up until after lunch. Finstalker warned prior that the river ran really high and fast a week or so before, and a lot of the old holes were washed out. No worries, I wasn't expecting much. The main thing for me was to get out away from all the hub-bub here in Raleigh.
Got on the water around 10AM with cloudy skies and air temp around 40F. The water temp was plenty cool, I don't carry a thermometer, but my toes were pretty numb after a couple hours in the water. The water was clear, but running a bit high and fast still. So I put on a beadhead green wooly with flash and slowly moved up river. No takers at the first couple of holes. I had to shorten the leader a bit as I was having a terrible time casting, especially after putting on a small wet fly trailer. As my casts begin to settle down, I came to a nice stretch of water to keep me interested, a few 10-12" rainbows, until lunch.
Lunch was in the car to warm up the toes. Then drove up river to a familiar stretch so finstalker could find me easier. After a few casts, and a nice trout (the 14" one) finstaker showed with a friend in arm, literally. It was his little jack russell, Max. Although with short legs, Max had no fear with the cold water and wanted to fish with finstalker wherever.
It was definitely slow fishing, and it was nice of finstalker to let me cast first in a couple of holes. We split up a little bit before sunset as I was wearing out my arm trying to cast upstream of a deep hole. I was trying to throw a fly line with two split shots above a beadhead and a mosquito trailer. Whew, what a workout.
I got too tired, so move up river a bit to less wild water. It was around 5PM and the sun just dropped under the horizon. I cast downstream and let the fast water take the flies down along side a large protruding rock in the center of the river. Wham! That was the biggest of the day, look to be just above 16". The photo is terrible, I'm sorry. My hand was cold and shaking from the fight, plus not much light was left so it didn't turned out very well. At least I didn't dropped my phone in the river this time around. (I learned my lesson and brought along a small camera.)
Perfect ending to another great day of fishing with finstalker. That's it for me this year (I think). Best Wishes and Merry Christmas to y'all.
Morning Fishing
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We were friends for a minute
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Here's the 14" just before Finstalker showed
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Max and Finstalker
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Here's the wild hole that I bust my shoulder for a while at, where I managed a few
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Here's the biggest of the day, 16" or so, sorry for the blurry photo
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Got on the water around 10AM with cloudy skies and air temp around 40F. The water temp was plenty cool, I don't carry a thermometer, but my toes were pretty numb after a couple hours in the water. The water was clear, but running a bit high and fast still. So I put on a beadhead green wooly with flash and slowly moved up river. No takers at the first couple of holes. I had to shorten the leader a bit as I was having a terrible time casting, especially after putting on a small wet fly trailer. As my casts begin to settle down, I came to a nice stretch of water to keep me interested, a few 10-12" rainbows, until lunch.
Lunch was in the car to warm up the toes. Then drove up river to a familiar stretch so finstalker could find me easier. After a few casts, and a nice trout (the 14" one) finstaker showed with a friend in arm, literally. It was his little jack russell, Max. Although with short legs, Max had no fear with the cold water and wanted to fish with finstalker wherever.
It was definitely slow fishing, and it was nice of finstalker to let me cast first in a couple of holes. We split up a little bit before sunset as I was wearing out my arm trying to cast upstream of a deep hole. I was trying to throw a fly line with two split shots above a beadhead and a mosquito trailer. Whew, what a workout.
I got too tired, so move up river a bit to less wild water. It was around 5PM and the sun just dropped under the horizon. I cast downstream and let the fast water take the flies down along side a large protruding rock in the center of the river. Wham! That was the biggest of the day, look to be just above 16". The photo is terrible, I'm sorry. My hand was cold and shaking from the fight, plus not much light was left so it didn't turned out very well. At least I didn't dropped my phone in the river this time around. (I learned my lesson and brought along a small camera.)
Perfect ending to another great day of fishing with finstalker. That's it for me this year (I think). Best Wishes and Merry Christmas to y'all.
Morning Fishing
We were friends for a minute
Here's the 14" just before Finstalker showed
Max and Finstalker
Here's the wild hole that I bust my shoulder for a while at, where I managed a few
Here's the biggest of the day, 16" or so, sorry for the blurry photo
