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Friday, March 10, 2017

SUCCESS ON A TOUGH DAY BY JOHN BERRY


Late last week I guided Lynn, a regular client, and two of his buddies. While Lynn is an accomplished John and Mark either had never fly fished or had little experience. I began the day with a brief casting class. When I am guiding three anglers in the boat, I only have two fishing at a time to limit the tangles due to the close proximity of the fly fishers. We were fishing at Rim Shoals. The weather was cool, the sky was over cast and the wind was unrelenting. The parking lot was at maximum capacity because, in addition to the guides that fish there regularly, there were several additional guides that generally work the Norfork fishing there. They told me that the Norfork was fishing poorly and they thought the fishing would be better at Rim Shoals.



In fact, the going was slow, despite having a stellar day here, on the day before. We were fishing a size sixteen pheasant tail nymphs tied on a jig hook with a slotted copper bead and a ruby midge as a dropper. We caught few fish in the morning. I talked with many of the other guides as we passed on the river and all said that the bite was slow. I pumped the stomachs of the few fish we caught and noted that they had not been feeding.



About ten thirty, the wind picked up. It was colder to me than was forecast. I was wearing a cotton turtleneck, a down sweater and a rain jacket and I was freezing. I motored over to the ramp and got my rain bibs, a fleece lined jacket, some wool fingerless gloves and a warmer hat. John was also cold so I loaned him a down vest I had in the boat. We returned to the water and were much more comfortable. We fished until lunch and picked up a precious few more trout.



Lynn had been letting his buddies do all the fishing for most of the day. He finally decided to fish some. The going was slow and though Mark and John landed several he had not hooked a trout. All of a sudden I saw his indicator go down and yelled out Ho! He set the hook and immediately felt a good fish. I could tell by the bend in his rod and the way the fish was moving that it was a trophy. It was hugging the bottom like a brown.



I ran to the front of the boat and pulled my drag chain up on the deck so that there was nothing the fish could get tangled in. Mark pulled in his line and we just sat there and watched Lynn fight the fish. It took run after run and circumnavigated the boat a couple of times. Lynn kept constant pressure on the fish and took his time. After about ten minutes the fish finally gave up and surrendered to the net. One of the guys had videoed the fight.



When we looked in the net we saw a gorgeous twenty-four-inch brown trout with good girth and gorgeous color. It had spit the hook in the net. Lynn had landed a trophy brown trout on a size eighteen ruby midge. That is not much metal to hold a fish that big and that hot. We posed for a few photos and then carefully released the brown unharmed into the river. It was the only trout Lynn landed that day and was the biggest brown that he had ever landed.


Sometimes one trout is all you need.

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