On this day I fished with a friend. I recorded two fishing sessions, both of which I did share water with my amigo. Splitting the river changed the way I would normally fish, not by a lot, but it does change the pace and how I cover water. This journal entry post will cover both the morning and afternoon sessions.
Morning Session
Time: 9:15AM - 12:15PM
Weather Conditions: Clear skies, temps started around 52F and rose to about 70F
Water Conditions: Water temps started around 48F, ended around 52F. Slightly higher than average flows, gin-clear water.
With the crisp morning air, and cold water, there wasn’t much activity on the surface. I figured fishing a little bit below would be the best approach so I started with a larger and brightly-colored sakasa-style kebari with hopes to entice a strike - even if the fish had to move a bit more in the colder water.
Placing casts in the little pockets strewn about the boulders yielded a few bites, but nothing that committed. I reached a long pool that had no disruption on the surface. I had never caught a fish from this specific pool in the past, but this time around I put a bit of tungsten putty on my tippet and floated the kebari through using the “kikiawase” technique. On the second or third drift I hooked into my first fish of the day, and shortly after I brought the second fish to net as well. These two rainbows were the biggest catches for the morning session, both around the 8-10” range.
Further up in the creek we didn’t have as much luck, most likely due to another angler who decided to sneak his way ahead of us. After we caught up and moved around him, we started to run into more fish.
With the sun finally above the eastern ridge, and the air warming up, more bugs started dancing above the surface and the activity started to pick up a bit. I brought two more smaller rainbows to hand as I worked around the right side of a large, divided pool that my friend and I split. After a few more bites upstream from there the activity started to decline as we got closer to high noon.
Afternoon Session
Time: 1:30PM - 3:30PM
Weather Conditions: Air temp around 75F. Mostly clear skies, with a few clouds and a light to moderate breeze.
Water Conditions: Flows in this section were a little higher, but the water clarity was the same. Gin-clear! Water temps were around 58-62F
This was a section I hadn’t fished before, but it looked promising. With it being a wider section, my friend fished from the bank starting out, while I waded in and fished the far seams in the other half. The first pool didn’t have any opportunistic fish, and the next few pockets next to the bushes on the far bank didn’t either. As I moved up, I did find success under some low hanging branches and landed a few more rainbows.
Further up the way it got quite a bit deeper and we both ended up fishing from the bank. While my friend was working on a new idea and picking apart a run, I moved to the next pool up and quickly landed three more trout from the edge of the pool. One of those was my biggest catch of the day.
Noticing more activity further up in the pool, I decided to get my friend on more fish. I broke down my rod and packed it all away, went to get my friend, and observed while he got several more bites and landed one extra fish for the day.