Niche & Browns on The Fly

What an unbelievable fishing experience for Jay, today! This was definitely the best fishing, so far this season! It was a double-digit day within the first couple of hours. With the sunshine out all day and the air temps reaching into the 70’s, I knew we had a winner! I don’t think we had the lines out for more than 3 minutes before the first rod fired & Jay was into his first salmon. After netting the fish and placing it into the live well, Jay thought he would celebrate with a cup of coffee. Big mistake! Another rod fired off and he had to drop everything to grab it. A third rod went at the same time and two fish were on for a few brief seconds. Unfortunately, only one of them stayed pinned as Jay landed his second salmon of the morning. Rods continued to fire off every five to ten minutes with some of the fish coming off before Jay could even get to the rods. I don’t think we went more than 15 minutes at the most without some sort of action, all morning long. The best fire-drill of the day had to be when rod # 2 fired and I yelled, “Fish on 2” then “Fish on 3” then “Fish on 4”. Jay didn’t know where to turn as he grabbed the second rod. I grabbed the third, then the fourth before I realized, there was nothing I could do with my hands so full. I decided that I would just place them back in the rod holders and concentrate on landing one fish at a time. Remarkably, Jay did just that! All fish were eventually brought to net and we both got a good laugh at this ordeal. After we regained our composure and put the rods back in the water, another fish was on and Jay was about to land a beautiful brown trout. This was definitely a bonus fish! Several salmon later, he landed an even bigger brown trout once more and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the size of it. It was all of five pounds and more! Another bonus fish for the day! There were 14 fish landed and several more missed strikes before noon. We had to take a ten- minute break for lunch, as we knew it would be an impossibility to eat & fish. That would definitely be a recipe for disaster! The winds had gotten stronger when we returned to fishing and this definitely made boat control more difficult. We were still catching fish, but the 2 to 3 footers that were bouncing us around, were really annoying. Many more salmon and another big, bonus brown trout were landed during the afternoon with every one a fire drill. Lines were tangling from the winds while fighting these fish and netting them was a real treat too! We endured all that “Mother Nature” had to offer and fished till about 4:00 in the afternoon before calling it quits. By days end, I had recorded a surface temp of over 50 degrees in some of the areas we had been fishing. It’s no wonder that Jay had the time of his life, landing 22 fish by himself. What a “Great Day on The Water”!!!!! I can’t wait to get back!