An Urban Retreat

Yesterday at work was... well, how should I describe it? INSANE. Artfest has taken over the neighborhood, and the crowd at work was larger and more intense then most Fridays. Add to the fact that I worked from 11:15 AM until nearly 10 PM and you get one tired, burnt out restaurant employee. What could possibly be better than a little urban fly fishing to soothe my nerves? Maybe a beer, but that's a different story all together...

Double Nymph Rig. Check. 

I set out this morning on my favorite urban river (you know which one I'm talking about, so don't be shy) that just opened the day prior. Wild Redband trout along with a healthy dose of Mountain Whitefish and a few lunker Brown trout patrol the waters that I was fishing. None of these fish are in extreme abundance (it's a C/R fishery for trout) and bigger fish size is more typical than numbers of fish caught. Add in flows that are still over 10K CFS, no boat to fish out of, and you have a tough fishing situation.

This river is best fished with nymph rigs, and I came readily equipped with my 6 wt Scott, a Pat's Rubber Legs and a Spitfire attractor nymph. No dice on the first few holes I hit (though I did surprisingly see a fish rise) but after losing my Spitfire pattern to a tree (tight quarters + high water = lost flies) I tied on a tan caddis pupa pattern that I tie myself. Bingo. A few casts into a back eddy that formed between a few trees and some heavy current... Indicator DOWN. I hooked into a hot fish that took me into the current, ran at me (saw the fish in this case... big Redband), then back to the current and into some tree limbs... Uh oh. I feel the tension in the line slack and the fish was off. I was beyond bummed out.

I've lost some nice fish in this hole before and thought that it was going to get the best of me again. I sharpened up the caddis pattern hook before throwing out my rig again and mended to my hearts content letting the indicator work around the back eddy to the head of the pool... Indicator DOWN. I thought it was a hydraulic at first, but hydraulics don't make your rod tip dance, nor do they jump out of the water. After a nice fight, several aerial displays, and a tough time finding a spot to land the fish, I brought in my first urban Redband of the season.

First Redband of the Season.

Spunky little 12" native Redband.

The fish, 12" in the measure net and small for this river, was certainly not as big or feisty as the one I had hooked just minutes earlier, but I took an extra second with it in my net, thankful that it played along with my and helped alleviate my stress from a crazy day. The fact that it was my first of the season was also not lost on me as it flopped out of my hand while trying to take a close up shot... he shot off into the pool after sitting at my feet for a second, surely more wary of a fly in the future. And low and behold, my little caddis pupa pattern struck again. Here's to hoping that the Redband I caught today matures and grows to look like my birthday fish that I caught this past winter in the same exact spot.

Birthday Redband in Spawning Colors.

I only had one more takedown in the hour of fishing that I did. Homework, house chores, and another shift at work took me off the river before I would've liked. But I can't complain, because there's nothing like an urban retreat after a long, hard day.