Eddie Rivard Fly Fishing: Saturday Morning Special

I crept along the stream banks trying to keep a low profile while still making an effort to judge the depth and structure of each hole I walked past. While on the way down here this morning I had mentioned to Taylor that I was actually going to try to catch a fish today. I wasn't feeling overly enthusiastic about writing another blog post about going fishing and not catching any fish. That coupled with the challenges of fly fishing for trout in the winter had inspired me to make a special effort in the days leading up to this adventure.

When I read Ryan Frick's post about starting the year 2015 off on a good note I was exhilarated. Not only does this guy have a great numbers day on New Years Day he also hauls in a 20 inch Brown Trout. I had to devise a way to outwit him into divulging his secret methods to me. My first step was to interrogate him in the comments section of his blog post. I couldn't believe it when he actually took the bait.

"How could his secret be so simple?" I asked myself. When Ryan posted a close up photo of his behemoth on his Facebook page I thought I noticed something peculiar about his size 8 black wooly bugger. Just as I had suspected the dang thing was tied sparse. The main reasoning I envisioned for the slender profile was to achieve a faster sink rate without having to add extra lead. Armed with this new information I decided to tie some size 8 slender buggers of my own.

Armed with my size 8 slender buggers and extreme confidence I felt a newfound focus this morning. I found a spot that looked slow and deep and started casting. After casting for a few minutes and not catching anything I walked up through the hole looking for signs of fish. Despite the crystal clear water I didn't spot any fish in the first five or six holes I fished. Continuing upstream I wondered if Taylor was having any luck.

After rounding this bend in the river I came upon a pool that was about 4 feet deep. I cast my bugger and dead drifted from the top of the pool to the bottom giving it an occasional twitch. Staring into the depths I saw the unmistakable outline of a trout swim over to check out my bugger. It was the first fish I had seen to this point and my level of optimism increased from around 70% to about 82%. Right about that time Taylor came walking up and I asked him if he had been having any luck. At first he told me that he had caught something like 5 Browns and 7 Brooks. I believed him at first because it's not uncommon for him to totally outfish me in the numbers game. He quickly came clean and confessed that he was kidding about his success and hadn't managed to catch one yet. Right about that time I felt a jiggle in my rod and the time of success was upon me. After a brief but exciting struggle he was in the net and I felt like I had the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. It was nice to have Taylor there to snap a couple photos so I didn't have to attempt a trout selfie.

I was so happy. And good looking I might add.

I didn't take an exact measurement but I'd say that he was at least 13 inches and maybe even a little bigger.

Here is a closeup of the bugger. If you want to imitate it you must use a Tiemco TMC-300 hook. Any substitution of this will result in diminished fish catching ability. We also noticed some small leech like creatures below his gill. I have never seen such a sight in my life.