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This being Saturday, I knew most of my usual haunts would likely be fairly pressured with weekend tourists and fishers, so I decided to venture up into the mountains to search out the headwaters of a stream I fish twenty miles down stream. The gravel road goes for a long distance, climbing to greater than 9,000 feet before it becomes impassable even in my truck. I didn't need to go nearly that far up, though. The drive is quite beautiful, as you can see in this shot:



I decided to give my new glass Spring Creek rod a try, along with its complementary green reel. The reel is an Ocean City #35 JC Higgins knock off. Mary Lu looked the combo over and said, "Way too many different greens." I think she feels about the same about this combination as she does the Honey rod with its matching orange reel.



Twenty miles down stream the flows this year have been nearly dangerous. I doubt I could have crossed it anywhere in the sections I routinely fish, till maybe the last week, but up in the mountains, this is a little mountain riffle with not many good places for even small cuts to live. Here are a couple shots of the better runs I encountered today.





That second run is just a lovely corner deep riffle, just begging to give up several nice fish, but absolutely nothing came to hand. The first one showed me the first fish of the day, a surprising small bull trout. I honestly have never caught a bull trout in this steam in five years of fishing, but then I've never fished it this far up in the headwaters.



The second fish was yet another bull from the same run:



Bull trout in smaller sizes often live in headwater streams and are as eager to take dry flies as cutthroats are. This one is a bit bigger, maybe eleven inches. Bulls are quite long and slender. In larger sizes they are fierce predators. Actually they are not all that different in shape or behavior from northern pike.

I kept moving up stream trying to find decent runs that would likely hold Westslopes. I found one little fellow:



Then a little farther on I found a little brook trout. Finally I came to a good long deep riffle that gave me a shot at this fine little Westslope:



I held him against the rod to determine his size and think he went just shy of twelve inches, just a fine fish for such a tiny stream.

As it was getting late, I was getting ready to hang it up for the day. The sun had gone down behind the tight hill to the west as I pushed on a little farther and came to this nice plunge pool below a log. It probably ran three or four feet deep in the middle and ran fairly deep right to bank at my feet. I glanced through the tree branches and saw a fish swirl in the middle just below the foam. It looked like a good fish.



I couldn't really cast because of the tree cover to my right, so I got down on my knees and just flicked the fly out into the foam and, bang, the big fellow came right up and took. It only took me seconds to see a long, wide across the dark back, fish of well over fifteen inches. Another look and I could see white on the front of the fins and knew I was into a good big strong bull trout. I had no idea if I would be able to get him in. I was fairly sure he would not leave the security of his deep pool, but it was surrounded by snags and that plunge log surely had a nasty snag ridden cavern underneath. Of course he shot under there right off but I managed to coax him out. Back and forth and up and down and rolling and twisting but never really testing my tippet. I finally pulled him over to the deep bank at my knees and was able to reach down and cup him by the middle and lift him up to remove the fly and get a couple pictures.



You can see the fly still in his nose. I've never caught a large bull trout with a dry fly before, only small ones like the ones I caught earlier. The big ones usually hunker down on the bottom and are only tempted by fish. I've often had them grab cuts I've hooked, sometimes winning the fight and ending up with a meal. This stream doesn't have many fish, maybe because of fellows like him, but more likely because there just isn't much holding water for them. This fellow has apparently continued to live on insects well into his adult life. He is an absolutely perfect specimen, as you can see, good and big and strong and not a mark or scratch on him anywhere. Here is another shot of him:



Before I released him, I held him against my rod and his nose went at least three inches past the upper trim wrap on my rod. I usually have those wraps at fourteen or fifteen inches, so that boy is probably every bit of eighteen inches, quite an astounding fish for many miles up in a tiny mountain stream. Everything is relative, of course. I would have to suggest that, given the size and location of the stream, that is certainly one of the most outstanding fish I've caught in well over fifty years of fly fishing. After that one, I decided to call it a day. I took off my hat, sat back and considered my lot. Pretty hard to not consider myself one lucky fellow.



Dave Lewis