Brown + Brookie = TIGER

It all started with a wrong turn....

A few nights ago Nick and I agreed on a destination - we are headed south to hit a favorite river. With so little time to prepare my arsenal of flies I figured tying and work came first and sleep will just need to wait. Besides there's always Red Bulls. After too many hours of driving and too many of those hours on dirt roads, the sun was finally rising. With the early morning light upon us, you could now see the playground…. it was looking good. As we were admiring the creations and not paying attention to the road we missed a turn. Normally you would turn around but instead, for some reason, we kept going… why I have no idea. So I suggested that we could always check the lake over the pass. Since Nick had never been there before we decided to keep on going. We arrived at the lake, the sun was almost on the water, wind was calm and the outside temperature was absolutely freezing. We were much higher in elevation than initially anticipated and the arsenal of flies that I "had to tie" was now useless. At that moment I realized that I might not have my lake flies. I was almost at panic mode when I found the flies that I got from Cheech - they really paid off. I am not much of a lake fisherman so breaking down the "problem" takes a bit more time. After many fly changes, we finally found the right color. It was the last color we tried and the original color that I had said in the beginning that had always works here - I suppose one can never have too much knot tying practice. Most every other cast produced a chase. It was like a cat chasing a mouse but it was a task trying to get them to actually eat it. So we spent the rest of the day trying to keep them interested…. maybe they were trying to keep us interested, who knows. It was a great day and a ton of fun taking a friend to a new place and catching healthy fish. I also caught a Cutthroat on a hopper, on Thanksgiving Day!

The drive home was filled with conversations of "what ifs" and "should have done that" and "forgot about that". We agreed to go home hit the vise and go back in a few days. The call went out, Ralphy and MFRW wanted in…only two more days' till we can test out the theory.

The Theory…

We needed a flashy fly that would stay suspended and had great overall movement…got on the phone and got some advise from Cheech. This is the part that I really enjoy about fishing, over analyzing the situation and going bonkers at the vise. Somehow each time I end up tying nothing that resembles the original plans… and trying to make my novice tying skills look like something is not easy. Way too many dozen flies later we should have it covered.

The return was filled with Neil Young and some live Doors tunes…and anticipation. Down the dirt road and over the pass, the sun was beginning to break and the sunrise was another picture prefect moment. Time seemed to whiz right by… maybe it was just MFRW's driving. Finally we arrived at the spot, the lake was calm, it was the same scenario but thankfully this time was a little warmer. Well, to say the least it was a great day. We all got into fish; Nate was getting into some beautifully colored fish. Chris lost a PIG and Nick was feeling it, and put on a show. Best of all every last one of us got our fingers chewed up by the sharp a$$ teeth, all had bloody fingers. Out of all those flies only a few worked as planned, but at least one turned out… the one Nick had. Guess next time we need to tie a dozen of each style… just in case. It was great to be up in the high country fishing with a bunch of delinquent's. These are the trips that really keep me going…. Random last minute trips that require some effort and turning a wrong turn into something that will be remembered for quite sometime. The biggest lesson I learned was probably, to go with the flow. As always I learned a ton. Can't wait till spring lake fishing.