I always, (well mostly always), let Natalie have the best holes. After all, I'd much rather her hook into fish so I get to see the excitement and exhilaration on her face as I watch. The first couple holes she fished did not produce so we kept advancing further up. We came upon a hole my dad caught a big one out of a couple years back. I cleared out of the way, and watched Natalie toss a hopper pattern. After a few casts a dark figure arose from the depths to take a look at the imitation. Natalie pulled the fly a tad early, and the fish went back down. She cast again, and again the fish sparked interest engulfing the fly almost immediately. With a gentle slurp, Natalie let out a slight scream and set the hook. This was a nice fish. So nice in fact, it turned out to be her biggest fish to date. Sitting on the bank, watching her fight the beast brought a big smile to my face. She was so excited. With every head shake and flip and turn she became even more excited. A frantic yell to me to grab the net soon erupted so I hurriedly did so, only to break off the handle in the process. (Great, now I have a net with no handle.) At least the actual net portion was still intact. I awkwardly grabbed both sides and scooped the big cutt. It barely fit-this was a long fish. I estimated about twenty three inches. Natalie was ecstatic over the whole ordeal. My cutthroat void was now filled-I didn't even have to catch it myself. Watching her land something of this size in a small stream was all I needed. We snapped a couple quick pics and took some video and released the fish, hoping to meet again another day. I have caught many of the same fish in this stream multiple times-one of the great benefits of catch and release.
We eventually came upon one of my favorite holes. Once again, Natalie let the hopper fly. Another big fish rose to hit the fly and was on long enough for us to get excited about how big it was before it broke free. "Dangit", Natalie yelled. She tossed the imitation a few more times, but the fish wasn't interested in sloppy seconds.
It was now my turn to fish. The particular run I started on has always seemed to produce a nice fish. I tied on my newly tied parachute pattern, and was soon feeling the bend of a nice Bonneville. The fight was fun on the 3wt, I could feel everything the fish was throwing at me.
It was now getting to the time where we about had to leave. We had not even fished a whole lot of the stream, but still was having great success. Desperately wanting to feel the tug once more, I ditched Emma off with Natalie and ran up stream. I came to an over-hanging tree towering over a very fish run and let the line fly. Soon enough, another big cutt rose and ate my fly. I yelled with excitement, as I did not expect a big fish in this run. I tried to yell to Natalie to have her help me net the fish, but she never heard me. With one hand securing the line to the cork of my rod, and the other awkwardly holding my busted net, I gave all I could muster and scooped the fish up. It was another big beautiful Bonneville. Bigger than my previous. By now, Natalie had come, finally hearing my yelling and we snapped some more pics and then released the fish.
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| Emma enjoying the action |
It was a trip to remember. Everything just seemed to fall into place. We caught big fish after big fish, with one of Natalie's being her biggest yet. The empty cutthroat void I was feeling was now overflowing. We would be back soon to chase these cutts again. Enjoy the short video edit below of the trip.
NICE!
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