Cold Start Hot Finish on the Dream Stream

Not quite the coldest we've ever fished the Dream Stream but at two degrees above zero, it was cold enough. Not as cold as last March though when we showed up and it was eighteen below! Either way fishing was pretty much impossible until it warmed up a bit.

Mike, Mary, and I started off below the bridge but we were only able to land one before we decided there was just too much ice on the water. We headed up to the top parking lot and took our time crawling out of the truck.

It took a while to warm up but the water was clear up by the dam and Mike was able to hook up pretty quickly. We worked our way up to the dam and picked up a few but it we decided to head back down below the bridge to see if the water had cleared.

Water looked great and we started hooking up pretty regularly as the temperature rose. I wouldn't say
we were on fire but we didn't have to go too long between fish. We found a few really fat cuttys.... NOT very subtle takes. They hit hard and fought hard and kept us fully entertained. By the time Mike and I had worked our way back up to Marty at the bridge we had each landed seven or eight.

We had to make the traditional stop at the weir run and Mike and I got in a little numbers
competition. We were each hooking up pretty much every other cast. Lots of dinks but you know your having fun when your buddy is willing your fish to spit the hook! We went fish for fish for about an hour and wound up with twenty fish! Well Mike did anyway. I came in a close second at seventeen. We landed some nice ones too in between the dinks and even got to see a monster brown laugh at us for a few seconds.....

Super fun day that started off kinda crappy but turned out great. Of course you know what they say about a bad day of fishing and this day was far from that.

First 201520 Courtesy of Deckers

Behind multiple trips on the blog! Have a few really good trips to write up so I figured I better get at it. This trip was the first trip of 2015.

Ben had his son Andrew in town for the Holidays and we decided to drive up to Deckers. We got up there and rigged up and as soon as we were rigged up we remembered that Andrew didn't have a license...... So we decided that Ben and I would fish for a half hour or so and we'd go hit Rainbow Falls since you don't need a license there.

There is a run I've seen many times up at Deckers and it normally has one or two bubbas in it. Not the case this day. I'm sure it has a name but it's just on the other side of the big hill you drive over if you pass the first parking pull off. Its a nice slow bend up against a rock face. The head of the bend has a perfect riffle into a drop off. There are two currents that meet up at the drop off and it is absolutely gorgeous.When we first parked there were a few guys fishing the run but by the time we were rigged up and realized Andrew didn't have a license they were gone. I think that had a big part in the, "fish for half hour since we're here" plan.

I actually started towards the tail end of the bend and worked my way up. It took me twenty minutes to get to the head of the run and really notice how nice the drop off was. I took two casts and WHAM! Something big hit and took off like a bat out of hell! It wasn't on very long. Maybe five seconds. I never saw the fish. I knew it was a good fish though and since it broke me off and since I'm writing this from memory that has sat for a month and a half I'll call it a good thirty inches.... easy.

Fast forward a week and we were back at Deckers looking for redemption. Same run, same rig, same flies, same cast. It only took a few casts and I was hooked up again. Nothing huge but a really nice eighteen inch rainbow. I knew there were bigger fish on that drop off...

After a quick pic I made the same cast and WHAM! This time I was ready. Line was on the real before I made the cast. Good thing too since this fish did the exact same thing it did a week ago. I really think it could be the same fish. This time I knew its game plan though and was ready for the long run against the far rock face. After about a five minute fight Ben made the net scoop and I had my redemption. A really nice twenty inch rainbow to bring in 2015. Going to be a good year!