More Twenty-inchers on the Wind River

Part 2: I continued to fish from the same pool and caught another rainbow. 

This one was a little smaller, 18 inches, yet a harder fighter; a perfect specimen from which to extract a throat sample.

It had been eating mostly size 16 to 18 green caddis larvae.  I swapped the prince nymph for a size 18 green caddis nymph.  

Working my way upstream into another set of riffles I caught a 20 inch brown.   

Guess what fly he took.  No, surprisingly it still took the half-back.  

Hiking back to the truck a couple of fishermen approached me and said they had seen me catch the brown from the road across the river.  They wondered if I could hear their cheering.  They said they were visiting from Florida and wondered what I was using.  The also said they had just spent $30 on a tribal permit.  I explained to them that the tribal permit allowed them to fish the canyon stretch of the river which was probably even better fishing.  They thought this was that stretch and didn’t realize it started at the tunnels.  I let them know they could fish this stretch between the dam and the tunnels on the days for which they didn’t have the tribal permit.  They quickly headed to their SUV to fish downstream inside the reservation.

I also fished the stretch of river further upstream, right below the dam.  Across the river a guide rowed upstream to the dam and had his clients fish right where the water came out of the chute.  I thought maybe the guide new this as some hard to reach, secret fishing spot.  I never saw them catch a single fish but finally one of the dam workers told them they couldn’t be that close to the dam.  How would you like to be referred to as “a dam worker”?   

I ended up only catch two fish along this stretch; however they were good size; a 22 inch brown and a 20 inch cutthroat. 

After dinner I tried the stretches of river by the campgrounds again but didn’t catch a single fish.

The next morning, before taking down the tent, I headed back to the other side of the river.  Starting again at the lower-most section I wanted to fish, I fished upstream through the entire section I had fished the day before.  I didn’t catch a thing, even on the half-back.  Hiking back to the truck, I decided I would try my spinning rod before leaving.  With it I can hit the water on the other side of the river I couldn’t reach with a fly. I tied on a floating, brown trout Rapala.  On the first cast a large fish snatched it right as it landed.  Boy was I glad I tried this last-ditch effort.  I could tell the fish was a big one.  Each time I would get it close enough to see, it would take out more line.  Finally I brought it to the net.  

It was a thick rainbow measuring 24 inches long and had a clipped fin.   

I checked a throat sample and it had been eating midges, size 22 or 24.  Since I was heading out this morning and it was a hatchery fish, I decided this would be one fish I would keep.   

Cleaning the fish I discovered it was full of eggs.  I had never seen a fall spawning rainbow before. The meat was dark red.  I washed the cleaned fish off at the campground and put it in the ice cooler.  At home, the fish was the best trout I had tasted, feeding the whole family plus my son’s family and grandparents.