Canyon Madness

Today Mike Snyder and I decided to go spelunking, I mean fishing. I say that because our destination of choice was in a very deep, rough, rugged, and physically demanding canyon river. We met at about 2pm and the weather started off being overcast making for a very good day of fishing. After gathering our gear we made ready and headed down a trail that would have been better suited for a mountain goat. We finally made it to the river and decided that we would hike, climb, and clamber over the rocks to make our way downstream to have more water to fish. I started the day with a #10 black stonefly, and Mike tied on a large peacock stonefly imitation. In the first pool after a few dead drifts Mike hooked up with a nice 16'' rainbow. Shortly after I hooked up with a strong 14'' rainbow. Following the rainbow, I caught a little redeye. The rest of the day we made our way upstream slowly dead drifting nymphs and picking up a few more trout including a 10'' brown that Mike caught. We ended our ascent in a beautiful tannin stained plunge pool of a fantastic waterfall. I added some serious lead to my leader and tied on a #8 Black woolybugger and began picking up more trout. I hooked into a very nice trout in the 17'' range, but unfortunately he threw the hook. Mike and I ended the day with 11 trout brought to hand/net.

Today Andrea and I decided to take the one man pontoons down the New River. We started at the Bluestone Dam at about noon. We were floating to southside. The skies were very overcast and the water was heavily stained. I started with a chartruese 3'' Gitzit G-tail and Andrea was fishing a pumpkin/chartruese 3'' Berkley Powergrub. After catching a few bass, I hooked a nice fish that I first thought was a nice bass, only to see an orange tail making me think I had foul hooked a carp. After a couple more minutes of the fight, I soon realized I had hooked a musky right in the top jaw. I jumped out of the pontoon and snatched that guy up against my chest. As Andrea was trying to get the camera ready for a trophy shot, the fish slithered out into the water again and broke the line. Ironically that was the only chartruese Gitzit I had and consequently the fishing went down the tubes quickly after that. I put on a Berkley Powergrub like Andrea was using and did hook very nice bass only to have it come unhooked later. A few more smallish bass later and the float was pretty much over.