There was nothing spectacular was caught on this trip and overall the fishing was slow, but fish were caught, and they were trout. I did catch this one interesting fish. Should I feel bad for something I just stuck with a hook? I think I did feel for this fish:
I am not sure if a bigger fish got to this one or if he had a stocking accident, but I wish him the best of luck since he is at least eating.
Other than that fish this was really an outing to play with my new toys. I tried out the yellow lenses in my Smiths. Wow is all I can say. I lost track of time and didn’t realize how dark it was getting because everything looked so bright. The vision it gave me into the water was phenomenal given the conditions. The wading jacket worked better than I expected, but I am a sucker for anything with pit zips. I got rained on some and I was dry and warm all day. I think the best aspect of a wading jacket is being able to reach into the water if needed and not worry about getting soaked. I need to practice with my composition, but I did get one ok shot:
I like the reflection aspect of this shot, but I suppose I will get the angles right eventually. I didn’t really fish hard and I didn’t cover much area, but getting out is what is important. It took me a while to find the right fly this time. I went through about 6 before finding the right one, a play on a flashback pheasant tail I tied a few years ago. It was kind odd that it took me so long to find something that worked as I know all of the holes really well in the section and know I was fishing the right depth. I saw a lot of risers that teased me into rigging up a dry fly with an emerger tailing off of it. This is a combination I can’t seem to get right on the Lower Illinois. I am going to actually tie up a few things and see if I can actually land one of the larger browns I have seen hitting the top. Maybe it will yield some better than average fish.
December 27th, 2007
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