January 9th Tuesday
Received a phone call from Darren Bowcutt, one of Trout Creek's more experienced
guides, with a wish to float the canyon today. Mainly to get some winter
pictures and do a spot of streamer fishing, and a possible bonus by running into
a midge hatch towards the bottom of the canyon. Hard to resist so I took him up
on the offer and we set off. The temperature hovered around 20 degrees but it
has been colder, making today seem quite balmy as we silently set off. At ll:00
AM we noticed the shadows are a permanent fixture due to the canyon basically
west to east. The sun has a difficult time getting to the bottom of the canyon
and is a rare commodity this time of year. I began stripping a streamer in the
shadows. One of my favorites, the Playboy Bunny is easy to see in the shadowy
water due to it's bright white and pink colors. hits came fairly quickly but all
were short strikes, then after a bit I had my first fish on. It was on the
upward side of average, a nice 18 inch Brown which gave us a nice run around the
boat several times and finally into the net. After this fish we had a slight
breeze pick up freezing the guides quite regularly, so we moved on looking to
find some sunlight to warm things up some.
The cold did not detract from the
beauty of the canyon. We saw numerous bald eagles gliding the currents along the
river, mostly running in front of us to sit in the dead snags until we came too
close then off again. Other resident birds are the Clark's Nutcrackers, and
plenty of ducks. Mallards, Gadwalls, and a bunch of Goldeneye flashing by in
flocks creating quite a whistle with their wings. I told Darren I would rather
move to some sunlight and fish some midge patterns to working fish if we could
find some sun. to do so we had to get down river out of the canyon below
dripping springs or the Coney Island area. However, upon our arrival we ran into
several other guides working that area. We pulled over to Rod Mangum working off
Coney and chatted with him as he cast to some heavily working fish on the shelf
straight out from the small island. We marveled at the shear numbers of fish
rising in line taking the invisible insects. We sat there so long that by the
time we left it was time to meet our shuttle. I fished for a total of 15 minutes
that day and Darren never made a cast, but we both agreed that it was time well
spent. If you haven't floated this time of year for a while, then do it you
notice just how clear the water becomes and how beautiful the river is.
I'm ready to get back out there.
The day after this trip the temperatures dropped considerably to well below
zero for several weeks, making it very difficult to fish. Very few fisherman came
in that period, but the fish continued to rise unhindered by us.
