The Epical 2025 Fishing Yarns and Photo Thread

[Rasputin]

Today was another mostly cloudy day with passing thundershowers, so I decided to see if the water was low enough to reach some of the most reliable big fish catching spots. Now I know for some of you what I call big fish are really quite marginal, but I think anything over 16" is a big one. Anyway, I went to where I have often caught fish which are in my estimation big.

So, after arriving, on my first cast, I caught a 16" cut/bow which went for a brown Pat's rubberlegs, which apparently looks like something in the river because it caught nine fish, of three and a half different species (only half of the fist fish was a cutthroat).





Yes, I caught 11 fish today, however six of them were small, to quite small, pike minnows which seemed to be everywhere. After working along the usual stretch of river, and catching a small whitefish, the voice which I identify as the God of flyfishing, told me not to stay there to long, as I would catch a big fish up stream at the big bend. So I didn't obsess on working the water like I often do, and made my way up stream. The water was about as high as I have fished there, and when I reached the big bend, I found water running across a shallow which has always been above water when I fished it. This shallow dumped into deeper water that usually is a back eddy created where the current goes across the river due to the abrupt bend. It seemed to me a natural place for a wily trout fish to gobble bugs and such that were washed from among the rocks of the shallow, so I worked along the drop off. I was amazed as I proceeded, that I was not getting titanic strikes. The back eddy that usually was there always seemed like it should produce, but it never had, and now that it was a perfect spot for a trout ambuscade, I was still not getting titanic strikes. Since reasoning with the Almighty about the propriety of that water for large trouts to eat was not working, I humbled myself and said "...of course, what do I know, I am a silly clown of a flyfisher, and would never catch a big fish if you didn't tell them to bite." Then the chubby indicator fly dunked under water, and I pulled in the big fish of the day. He was missing a chunk of his gill plate on one side, perhaps a close call with one of the many eagles in the area. Then I thanked the God of Flyfishing for telling me I would catch a big one if I went up to the big bend. Amen


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[swimmy]

jpcm told me this place was back from the dead. Guess we&rsquo;ll see.In the meantime, here for a few days. One of my favorite places in the world.

[Rasputin]

Beautiful swimmy, thanks for that.

[swimmy]

Salmon fly eater.

[Rasputin]

Well that's just a beauty swimmy.

I also caught a decent fish today, on a purple chubby chernobyl, hard to tell if he thought it was a salmonfly or what.

Actually I caught another one on it as well. After catching the second fish, another fish made the chubby disappear, then when I set the hook, whatever it was, took off like a torpedo, and broke the leader in the middle of the 2x section. Holy crap! I didn't even have time to let out line, and it was done. I think it may have been the biggest fish I never caught!


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[neckdeep]

I had one of those last week. Felt like a 10lb brown but turned out it was just a 5lb utah sucker foul hooked in the adipose fin.

[plugboots]

Those stay with you.
30 years ago, I was high stick nymphing the $3 bridge section, and a fish just crushed my nymph. It just took off, straight upstream. I was letting go with my finger to let it run, and it just popped my 3X.
I had a bonefish 20 years ago hit my fly, running away from me, and snapped my 16 pound tippet.
A year ago, a tarpon did the same thing, on 40 pound class tippet.
I’ve got more.

[tgapp]

got to fish on father's day
first cast with a size 20 parachute Adams
this river is really pretty small, much more used to fish in the 6-12" range here
got a sick new fishing hat for Father's Day too



only been bonefishing once and the only time i hooked up the fish totally broke me off on his second run and I wasn't horsing him either, just pure electricity even well past the point I thought the fight was more or less over

i reckon I'll keep thinking about that fish for the rest of my life

[Rasputin]

Nice one tgapp! I love hooking into something decent in a small stream!

Today I continued my usual clown show on the river. A few minutes into the day, I fell down crossing a small braid of the river that was a bit faster and deeper than it looked, and put about a quart of water in my waders, but fortune was on my side, as my camera and cell phone suffered no saturation! I call that a win, but I had wet feet and pants all day. Later, as I was undoing twisted flyline, a very large trout took my chubby chernobyl as it dragged downstream, I was so startled that my hook set was a bit over energetic, and broke off my rig in the fish's mouth! DOH! Two days in a row I lost the big one (incidentally, I will sheepishly confess that the reason yesterday's lunker broke the line so quickly was likely because I opted to fish with a knot in my leader even though I know better, I was irritated when I found the knot, and threw caution to the wind. I only recalled this as I lay in bed last night. Silly Rasputin, don't throw caution to the wind!)

Eventually though, the clown got some help from his higher power and caught a healthy rainbow and a few other smaller trouts, before squishing off into the sunset, with dry feet and pants on his mind.

[Rasputin]

I actually have a pretty good story in me about today's fishing trip, but I'm worn out and will just post some pics for now.

[lifelinksplit]

Tried to go fish the popular local but it was too busy for my taste but I did see a weird looking dog. And some random pics x-posted from a middle fork salmon trip in Kayak.

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[tgapp]

took shaaaaarp out to teach him fly fishing
ran into marsB
saw some nice fish
the cycle of teaching mags to fish continues, i got a ton of gratitude for this place and all it's given me

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[Rasputin]

W00t w00t tgapp on the tr00t! Learn one, do one, teach one.


Yesterday I fished and caught nothing, in hours on the river, except for a small sample of fish flesh that came back on the hook after a millisecond of thinking I might finally net one. Today, for quite a while I felt that I would repeat yesterdays skunk, but the God of Flyfishing, replete with tender mercies and loving kindnesses, eventually sent a fat little trout, which took a little Pat's rubberlegs while I had my water bottle out for a swallow. The hook set fiasco which ensued lead to me wrapping the line several times around the rod, and the reel as well, and I resorted to grabbing the line and pulling it in without the rod.

I was elated, as I had resigned myself to another day of no fish, but having been delivered from such a fate, I felt my confidence returning. Shortly afterwards, I converted again, landing a four inch northern pike minnow which had greedily wrapped his little mouth around the Pat's. The monkey off my back, I headed upstream to where I saw that the lowering sun was throwing shadows over the water which had produced an eat, on the previous trip to this the "Braided Bend" area. After much casting, eventually a healthy trout of a more satisfying size grabbed my purple chubby chernobyl, and I was so satisfied, that I took a picture.




Now that I had caught an acceptable troutfish, I started home, losing a fly in the same area I'd lost two at the beginning of the day, and then managing to tie a tight knot with the trailer fly around my leader. I cut off the trailer, and landed three more fish as the light became so dim that I worried about balancing on the log bridge I must cross to get home. It was hard to leave, the fish were rising like crazy, but I could hardly see my fly, and I had managed to land seven fish, five trout and two minnows (the second minnow, which think was a redside shiner, was only about three inches long, and after grabbing a #16 paracaddis, flew through the air when I set the hook, I thought it was a wad of algae at first), it turned out to be a pretty fishy day.

[Rasputin]

Oops! Wrong picture! I shot that budding Scotch thistle on the way to the water. ^^^^^

I meant to post a fish pic of course:

[stealurface831]

Made a wtb thread but figure I’ll get more eyes in here: looking for a blue water fly pole. Needs an upper fighting grip and to be able to throw a [emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]g line. Kind regards.


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[stealurface831]

Fucking emojis goddamnit


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[tgapp]

send sfb a note he might have something in that class (12wt)?

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[swimmy]

Incredible light yesterday

[Tap]

[::: :::]

@ CO anglers: is train access to the Animas a fun outing as a mid-August day trip out of Durango? Is it even doable? Worthwhile?
Considering a family outing to SW CO & just reading both about the Animas R & also the train. I’m unclear how the train handles random stops/pickups. This would be a solo day getaway, the others aren’t interested in this idea.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Rivers are still mostly high around me. I've been harassing bass, carp and some pretty alpine brook trout, but I'm ready for the (sort of) reliable PMD hatch on my local waters.

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[Harry]

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Made a wtb thread but figure I&rsquo;ll get more eyes in here: looking for a blue water fly pole. Needs an upper fighting grip and to be able to throw a [emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]g line. Kind regards. Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

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Come on up here and get a custom made Musky rod. The last time you were here fishing Muskies with me you used my one-piece 10 weight, since then I have added a 14 weight rod from the same custom rod builder. He also makes 18 weight rods.</p>

[Rasputin]

On the way to my favored stretch of river, I had a couple interesting interactions with wildlife. I spooked a hen mallard and her ducklings, she made a point a swimming and flapping her wings in the water right past me, and kept getting in front of me making a ruckus; I expect she thought me a threat to her young, and was playing injured, thinking I would be drawn after her, but she kept right on getting in front of me. This isn't the first time I have met this duck, she is really aggressive in her protestations, and doesn't seem to notice I have no interest in her ducklings, she's quite sure I am up to no good.

Once I finally had passed through her territory, I spooked a doe and her fawn, well really the doe spooked, and the fawn (about 18" tall) started running, and then saw me, apparently found me interesting, and ran right up to me, stopping five feet in front of me. I said, "You better go find your mother.", and the fawn trotted off.

Today I hooked and lost twice as many fish as I caught. I fished a double dry most of the day, as it was overcast most of the time, and fish were rising enough that I thought it best to offer them a choice to rise to. This worked as I got rises and hooked fish both on the big chubby chernobyls, as well as small dries including Griffith's gnat, yellow Sally, Elk Hair Caddis, and Renegade. I only landed three fish, but I had a big beautiful rainbow rise for a #10 tan chubby twenty feet straight in front of me, and that ain't bad.

[Rasputin]

Ineptitude, that's it, tonight I demonstrated ineptitude when faced with a very large trout on the hook. It first sucked under my elk hair caddis and once the chubby it was tethered to dipped, I did a fine job of setting the hook. The fish at first was wont to remain just where he had been, and I bent the rod and started yarding him up off the bottom, when I got him up he rolled on the surface, and I saw that he was over five inches dorsal to belly, then he decided he wasn't enjoying the process and started heading downstream. We were in a spot of slow moving water in the midst of the confluence, so the current wasn't really an issue, but suddenly the fish decided he'd had enough of this nonsense, and took off. Having lost a very large trout on the run recently, I let him pull out slack line, hoping he would relax, but then my ineptitude kicked in and I tried to stop him, and shortly the line came back without my elk hair caddis. , it was a very large trout.

However the fish were still rising, many of them, of good size in the same place as the very large on had been, and I kept trying, and changed flies, and tried some more; eventually I tried a gold micro chubby, and as soon as it drifted into the hot zone, wabamm! A big fish hit it, and I set the hook, I got to see the size of this one fully as it went airborne, easily eighteen inches, and then it threw the hook. Nooooo! said I. I continued trying as the good sized trout continued to boil in the hot zone, but try as I may, they were having none of what I was throwing.

I reluctantly moved up stream and as my mood deteriorated, having no luck, there were bugs everywhere, landing in my ear, and on the lenses of my glasses, bugs on the wing, bugs of several types in the water. Fish rising all over the place, and eventually, when I had in fits of despondence convinced myself it wouldn't happen for me tonight my indicator got sucked under and I panic set, ripping the fly away from the hungry fish. Nooooo!

This is when I started berating myself a bit for my ineptitude, I had failed three times, and I cried out to the God of fly fishing (He of limitless mercy), why am I so inept and bad at this, I should go home and indulge myself with a big slice of cake (which I will do once I am done with this story). I was on the edge, but the God of fly fishing insisted patiently to be patient and I would get a fish, and of course I did. It wasn't one of the very large rainbows feeding in the hot zone, in fact I turned my back and cast the opposite direction and then a fine lady cutthroat grabbed my root beer chubby chernobyl, and gave me a lively fight before reluctantly posing for a fish pic.

So remember, when you get despondent and begin berating yourself up, believe in the mercy of the Holy One of the rivers (and all other places), and His loving kindness will reward your faith with another try at landing one. The end.

[tgapp]

welp, got high holed by a kid who looked pretty new
he ended up waiting for me and asking for some advice
whatever, figured I'd help him out, better than catching dinks all day, plus he really fucked up my run
i fished with him for an hour or so, showed him how to preserve his dignity by fishing hopper dropper (it ain't nymphing if your bobber is shaped like a hopper)
he got his shit caught in a tree and i was trying to help
lost my balance and snapped my rod tip off
no good deed....

Edited to add: i was trying to hook the snagged branch with my rod tip when I slipped so I'm a total dumbass jong and I deserve all of your mockery