Ham's Fork: Twenty Inch Rainbows

Thursday morning we let the sun hit the tent before getting up.  Mornings are cold up in the forest with frost showing up on the tent.  We continued eating Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast.  After brushing our teeth and loading the fishing gear into the SUV, we headed to the private property above the dam.  We met the owner and his dog, registered and paid the $10, and headed to the river. 

The cows didn’t mind much as we meandered through them and through the gate.  We noticed a few other anglers working the closest good holes so we quietly walked upstream to find some stretches not currently being fished.  As we started fishing, we could see some of the large trout as they would dart out of sight.  This raised our excitement level considerably.  I checked the vegetation in the river to see what insect life was available, lots of scuds. 

We both hooked a couple of smaller trout which managed to get off.  Smaller trout meaning that they were smaller than the big ones we saw dart out of sight earlier, but certainly bigger than the one’s we had caught the previous two days.   We would have to do better if we wanted to land one of the bigger ones. 

The first big fish I landed took a greenish grey scud.  These are hard fighting rainbows.  I let the fish take line upstream.  This was encouraging because I knew this would wear it out.  As it drifted back downstream I moved downstream as well keeping the line tight downstream of the fish so it would continue to fight against it facing upstream.  I tried to get close to it with the net but each time I would get near, it would see me and with an extra dose of energy, dart upstream.  Finally, in the middle of the stream I managed to pull it close enough to reach it with the net.  I needed a bigger net.  I couldn’t get its head to go into the net like I wanted but while the fish was still I managed to get the net under him and lift it up with the fish barely in it.  What a beauty.  It looked like a steelhead.  The gentlemen fishing downstream came up to get in on the action.  What a great fish. 

This is why we fish this stretch, he commented.  The gentleman offered to take a couple of pictures and asked me if I was a guide.  The fish measured 23 inches long, one inch shy of the entire net including the handle. 

The gentleman asked, what did you catch it on?  I answered a greenish, grey scud.  He jokingly yells back to his friends “OK guys, they’re taking greenish, grey scuds”.

I got back to Nick just in time for him to hand me his camera so I could take pictures of him releasing the big rainbow he had just caught.  This was a great start for the day.