On Golden River

Started this day about 5:00 a.m., thinking of fishing in the backyard, which kept me smiling through most of my morning bus route. It was to be an early afternoon release -Wednesday- from our Milton-Freewater School System, so this meant that I should be home no later than 3:30. A good time to gear-up and jump into the river running through the backyard.

On my morning route the first student did not get on The Double Deuce, so this put a smile on my face to start the day as it meant, most likely I would not have to run the full extent of the afternoon route and that would let me get home a bit earlier than usual. Looked like it was going to be a great afternoon to go fishing!!!

To make a long story short, the day went very smoothly and when I got to school for my p.m. run there was the student that lives at the end of the route ready to load the bus. Oh well, it only cost 20 minutes more of the day to deliver this one.After finishing my p.m. route I got home, swept The Double Deuce, grabbed a snack, and geared up to go fishing.

Oh it was a beautiful autumn afternoon. I probably got into the river a little after 4:00 and found it to be quite golden...
Stepping into the middle of the river to take the picture above, and I began to think of my ole Carolina fishing buddies, wondering what they were doing this afternoon. I proceed to fish below the rock vein structure and found no hookups. I move around to the upriver side of the structure and fished along the right side of the river and found no action for the first 30 yards. Then with a nice cast upriver I got hit. On my little 1 wt. the fish's first run was like a steelhead run, almost out of control. I was using a Copper John nymph so the fish stayed deep and ran hard. There was several nice rips of fly line through the water leaving the rod tip before I saw what was on the other end...


It was a nice redband, played hard against the old 1wt. system. We both had lots of fun.
After this little battle I proceeded to move upriver to the next pool behind the boulder vein to see what was holding in this area.

Very interesting how the river has redesigned itself since the placement of these structures last year. Here in years past the river was very flat bottom and there was no fish holding water. Now behind the boulder structure the pool is about 2-3 feet deep and plenty of room of fish to hangout. Last year on the left side of the river, upriver of this boulder structure it was over 3' deep, now this hole has filled in with river rocks. Just interesting to watch the dynamics of the river hydrology at work.
Anyway, fishing below this boulder structure I hooked into a number of 6"-7"-8" redbands and ended up keeping the largest, still hoping to hookup to another 11-12 incher to join me for dinner.

To finish the day I ended up fishing about a ¼ mile of the lower McKuster Ranch waters, with no further hookups for the day. Water temperature today was 43ºF and the air temperature was in the lower 60's with plenty of sunshine. As the sun set this evening the air turned quite cool, my toes were beginning to get cold, and I was getting pretty tired from my 5:00 a.m. wake up. I turned around and headed home to feed horse.

2008 trout season closes on Friday at sunset, so I am planing to get in one more afternoon of fishing this year. I need a couple more fish now to go with the ones I invited today to join us for dinner on Friday. This is the only time of the year that I kill wild trout; after season closes I feel that I will never see them again if I don't invite them for dinner.

a day in the life --- Dale