Good Fish

I woke up late this morning expecting to just be lazy and tie a few flies. However, when I got online I saw that the water temp in Little River was starting off at a balmy 45 degrees. Despite my late start, I figured that today would be as good a day as any and headed towards the park. I wanted to focus on trying to get a really good fish today so after stopping at Little River Outfitters for a few things, I headed up LR and started hitting some of the big holes. I started catching fish right away but nothing over 10 or 11 inches. After hitting several different holes, I returned to one in particular that I usually do well at.

A large black stonefly nymph came out of my fly box and I started chucking it in at the head of the pool. On just the third or fourth cast, I had one of those great strikes where the line just stops and when you set the hook, something heavy is shaking its head. I was really hoping that it was a decent brown but out of the depths came a flash of rainbow. Now I was excited since I haven't got as many nice rainbows this year as in years past. Finally, I had the fish, all 15 inches of rainbow, up for a quick picture (which didn't turn out too good) and slid it back into the pool I had taken it from. Here's the best of the 3 pictures I got of the good rainbow.

The fishing today was very good, easily the best I've seen in a couple of months. Fish were feeding heavily just about everywhere I stopped. I even saw a good brown out cruising in one hole. There were good numbers of midges hatching. A Tellico, Zebra Midge, and of course the stonefly nymph all did well today. Most of the fish I saw were feeding subsurface but there were a couple of rises over the course of the afternoon.