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.
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