It's Raining Cats and Brookies

I left the office about 12:30 on Friday afternoon under dark skies and a light drizzle, and headed for Jacobs Fork.

One of the great things about trout fishing in the Appalachians is you never know what you're going to come across. Although I didn't get to talk with the fine folks at this residence, I'm sure they would have had a story similiar to the one Pablo and I heard several years back when we stopped to ask direction of a kindly old gent and an hour later heard about his grand son who was born with his heart on the outside.

















I Was in the creek by 2:00 and the sun came out it was warm so I ditched the rain jacket right after I shot the intro (which I didn't include here)- but as you'll see later, that wasn't a good idea. I slogged around for about an hour working my way upstream, only seeing a few small fish when I finally spotted a couple of nice size fish at the top of long slow pool. Caught a couple of little Brookies before getting into the bigger fish. Eventually made my way into the gourge section of the creek where there are deep plunge pools and watched the skies open up for the remainer of my day.

I ran into only two other fishermen, which is unusual on this stream at this time of year- obviously the weather had deterred all but the truly dedicated piscator. They said they had spotted a giant trout in a large slow pool about a few bends above my position, but alas, they could not garner his attention. As it turned out the rain was an omen, right after it started coming down, I was into fish in a big way, catching them on a variety of streamers, some dead drifted and some stripped or wiggled at the precisesly the right moment!

I believe I came to the big pool my brethern had told me about. When the rain would let up a little, I could see into the pool and spotted several nice fish, but one especially note worthy lunker. I landed a couple of 15" and then as my green woolly bugger drifted into the heart of the pool and I gently lifted it up in a slight jigging motion, a big head flashed up from below, inhaled the fly and turned back to the depths. I was thankful I had broken off the 6X tippet on a previous fish and had tied on a length of the 6lb test I had bought at KMart on my first outing. Everything held and I eventually coaxed him up into some shallow water so I could duly document the highlight of my day.




Just a great day- all my troubles washed away and only the companionship of some foul weather finned friends.