Post by Smallfry on Nov 23, 2021 11:12:04 GMT -6
Not too long ago I went up Spillway, I'd been scheming all day about patterns and which spots were on my hit list. It was late afternoon so caddis was my first thought, seems like I'd been inhaling quite a few of those little dudes on my last couple of trips. I had on an adorable cdc puffy thing with a small unweighted kinda caddis looking dropper (it was green).
Cast after cast, no bites, move on, cast some more, there's a splash, lost it. At that point I'd been targeting longer runs and the spot I had just come up on was some fast water. I dropped the rig on it and was surprised I could still track it. Another drift, I see a big ol head come up and nip below the dry, it goes under and I'm really thinking it took the dropper but found no resistance on the hook set. Ok, try again. A few runs later and nice looking rainbow dashed up and grabs the dry. She makes it back into deep water and starts heading toward a waterfall, I pull her away and she comes flying past me into a the shallow water but then heads right under a rock. I jumped off my little perch and scare her back out, she heads for more rocks then makes a sharp turn back towards me. I fumbled for the net and miss her, she starts for the rock next to me and I get her head up and manage to steer her into the net.
After that I switched my dry fly (it was very soggy) for an actual caddis pattern. I come up to a big pool and see an occasional nose poking out of the water, perfect! I miss a tug and try for some more. The caddis goes down, I set the hook, in comes a chunky little brown on the dropper.
After he is done on his way I get reset. It's getting dark but I didn't want to leave yet, it just felt too soon. All of a sudden I hear loud hissing behind me. I spin around and there is nothing. Now paranoid, I take a little look around, about 20 feet from me something pops out of the water onto a rock, it raises up and makes a big hiss in my direction. It's an otter. With a trout in her mouth. She kinda slithers back into the water and slowly makes her way closer to me hissing, I can see her teeth behind the limp trout. I yell at her a little and she ended up swimming to the other side of the pool to eat, where her crunching through the bones was still audible. Then the squeaking started and about 3 other otters showed up, they were much less aggressive. At that point I relented back home before it got too dark and I broke a leg or something.
Cast after cast, no bites, move on, cast some more, there's a splash, lost it. At that point I'd been targeting longer runs and the spot I had just come up on was some fast water. I dropped the rig on it and was surprised I could still track it. Another drift, I see a big ol head come up and nip below the dry, it goes under and I'm really thinking it took the dropper but found no resistance on the hook set. Ok, try again. A few runs later and nice looking rainbow dashed up and grabs the dry. She makes it back into deep water and starts heading toward a waterfall, I pull her away and she comes flying past me into a the shallow water but then heads right under a rock. I jumped off my little perch and scare her back out, she heads for more rocks then makes a sharp turn back towards me. I fumbled for the net and miss her, she starts for the rock next to me and I get her head up and manage to steer her into the net.
After that I switched my dry fly (it was very soggy) for an actual caddis pattern. I come up to a big pool and see an occasional nose poking out of the water, perfect! I miss a tug and try for some more. The caddis goes down, I set the hook, in comes a chunky little brown on the dropper.
After he is done on his way I get reset. It's getting dark but I didn't want to leave yet, it just felt too soon. All of a sudden I hear loud hissing behind me. I spin around and there is nothing. Now paranoid, I take a little look around, about 20 feet from me something pops out of the water onto a rock, it raises up and makes a big hiss in my direction. It's an otter. With a trout in her mouth. She kinda slithers back into the water and slowly makes her way closer to me hissing, I can see her teeth behind the limp trout. I yell at her a little and she ended up swimming to the other side of the pool to eat, where her crunching through the bones was still audible. Then the squeaking started and about 3 other otters showed up, they were much less aggressive. At that point I relented back home before it got too dark and I broke a leg or something.
