Somehow I got Labor Day off. My assistant manager at Blue Ribbon Fly Shop, Henry Seay, was scheduled to work and I had an opportunity to fish on a holiday. Generally we get a major influx of tourists over a three day weekend and a lot of them want to go trout fishing. As a result, our trout streams can get rather crowded, on these holidays. My wife, Lori, and I were more interested in a bit of secluded water, for our fly fishing outing.
The secret was a bit of patience. We just waited for everyone to leave. After a nice lunch, we drove over to the Ackerman Access on the Norfork tailwater. At first, the parking lot looked crowded but we soon noticed that everyone was packing up to leave. Lori and I talked to several of the anglers as they were leaving to be sociable and to get an up to date fishing report. By the time we had our waders on and rods rigged, the parking lot was almost empty.
I headed up stream, while Lori chose to begin fishing close to the access, with a promise to join me upstream a while later. As I waded into the Catch and Release section, I noted that I pretty much had it to myself. There was a single angler far upstream. He was fishing one of my favorite spots but I had plenty of water to fish and I knew that he would eventually leave.
I began the day fishing a green butt, my signature fly. It was still on my rod from the last time I fished this rod, a Sage ZXL nine foot five weight with an Orvis CFO reel and a Rio Gold fly line. It is one sweet casting rig and I fish it often. I took a nice fourteen inch rainbow on the third cast but the action abated quickly. I switched to a partridge and orange soft hackle and caught a couple more trout but the going was slow.
I looked upstream and noted the other angler walking out of my favorite spot. I walked up and chatted to him as he was coming out. He said that he had caught a nice brown in the run. Even though he had hammered it for over an hour, I thought that I had a shot. I took a minute or two to rerig. I stripped off the partridge and orange and put on a red fox squirrel nymph with a copper bead and copper wire. Below that I tied on a ruby midge. I then added some lead and a strike indicator. Almost immediately, I caught two ten inch brookies back to back.
I kept fishing the run and landed a fifteen inch rainbow. I just knew that a bigger trout was lurking there. I kept casting into the run and finally hooked a big fish. It jumped and I got a good look at the twenty two inch brown. Unfortunately it was able to spit the hook, when it got a bit of slack in the line, on the jump. I continued fishing and landed a few more trout. The big fish was an eighteen inch cutthroat. I just needed the brown for a grand slam. It was not to be.
After a while, I cranked in my line and headed downstream to find Lori. She was fishing a nearby run and doing well. She was using a partridge and orange soft hackle and catching some nice trout. I sat down nearby and watched her fish, until she was ready to go. We reveled in the solitude and the fishing. Around four PM we walked out hand in hand and headed home.
Fishing on Labor Day had been great!
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