Sure enough, I put in at the ranger's house, nary a piscator or anyone else in sight. The first run held one skittish little trout as did the second and third- I was going to have to get serious if I wanted to avoid a skunk. With the warmer weather I assumed there'd be top water attention but the royal wolf wasn't doing much. I took the first Brookie of the day when pulled the fly under water to start the retrieval. That was all the encouragement I needed to repent of my dry arrogant ways and go back to the "double dutch"(various woolly buggers flanked by small droppers drifted, swung and then stripped) method which has enticed so many trout this spring. There were still not a lot of fish, but as I hit the more overlooked seams and micro channels, I produced specks with some regularity.
Shortly after I'd removed the royal wolf, I casted into a slow deep run I've named the gorge. Although I'd had hits on the first two casts, my eye was not on my dancing green bugger working it's way against the languid current, but on a large, no, gigantic white mayfly that had just crash landed on the water and was flopping about furiously. On the third flutter a trout darted in and snapped the mayfly up. At that very instant, from the corner of my periphery I saw an underwater flash and realized a large, no, gigantic rainbow had just slammed my unattended woolly and was hauling it back to the black depth of the pool. My chuckle at the mayfly turned to a wail as I jerked my rod sky ward and felt two hard tugs and a pop. How is it that the most exciting part of the day usually entails a miss?
The final tally: 75 degrees with drifting cumulus clouds, three hours in the water, 0 people, 12 trout released and one blithe angler.
