Way Too Cold Out

I have recently been wanting to scratch that mid-winter fishing itch, and I have talked to one of my fishing buddies about doing just that. There's one major catch though ... This winter has been ridiculously cold. It was 30 below when I woke up this morning, and that's just way too cold. I hope all the trout in the Tetons are finding enough to eat since I can't imagine the macroinvertebrates are very active in this frigid weather.

My Last Fish of 2010: The White Whale

I'm not sure I could have better scripted my final trout of 2010 landed on the fly. You see, I spent the entire Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2010 obsessed with the idea of landing a monster brown. Despite the fact that I caught plenty of trophy trout over the 2010 fishing season, including a 23" wild rainbow on the Missouri, I couldn't seem to shake my obsession with the image of an enormous brown dancing in my head.

Who knows what exactly inside the head of a hardcore fly fisherman motivates him to obsessively pursue the big one that often eludes them day after day. I guess it might be different for each individual angler. Personally, my motivation seems to change from year to year and sometimes day to day. It's not like I'm always preoccupied with catching a trophy fish, and I can often have a wonderful time just being out on the river regardless of the size of fish I'm catching. That being said, I think that one of the things I love about fishing is the unknown of what lurks below, and the excitement that the next fish might be a behemoth. Some people get their adrenaline fix during the warmer months on single track mountain bike trails or kayaking the whitewater. Personally, I get it on the river with a fly road in my hand.

It was in pursuit of my next adrenaline fix that I neurotically chased that one monster brown, much like Captain Ahab's obsession with the "white whale." As the season began to wind down in late October, I lost sight of how much I enjoyed just being on the river, and I became consumed by my own personal "white whale." I almost exclusively chucked big streamers even when there was good baetis dry fly action. While on the Salt River hunting the big browns that run up out of Palisades in the fall, I even had my "white whale" on the end of my line, but to my devastating frustration he spit the hook in the middle of an exhilarating jump. It was one of the coolest streamer takes I have ever seen. I got to watch this huge brown pull off the bank and chase my fly all the way to the boat, but instead of being excited with getting to watch such a cool take, I was so pissed that I let it ruin a great day on the river.

And so, it was on the first Saturday in November that I put in at Husky's on the South Fork for what would be my last float of 2010. It was shaping up to be nothing more than an OK day of chucking streamers when we approached Fall Creek falls at around 3 or 4pm. I remember thinking that we were only a short distance from the takeout at the bridge, and this might be my last shot. I have never had all that much success fishing the side channel near the falls, but there is definitely some nice deep water and I was hoping that just maybe my monster brown might be lurking down there.

After hammering the bank along the falls with no success, I was beginning to feel like it wasn't going to happen. That's when I switched sides and casted into a deep seem line below the island on river right. My fly landed right next to a half submerged dead tree in the river, and I began to strip. I got maybe two or three strips in when my line went tight, but didn't move at all. Just when I was certain that I had snagged the end of the submerged tree, my line started to move slowly with the current. I was pretty sure that I had managed to break a branch off the tree because it wasn't moving fast and it was floating the same speed as the current. I started stripping my line in (probably harder than I should have) so I could get rid of the branch and keep fishing. Just as the sinking portion of my fly line reached the tip of my rod, what was actually a fish took off up river with such force and speed that I almost broke him off as I fumbled to get the extra line out from under my boot where I had accidentally step on it. After a bit more desperate fumbling, I got the fish on the reel and fought him for another ten minutes before I got a decent look at just how big he was.

Once he was netted and I had gotten plenty of pictures, I spent a while making sure that he was fully revived before I let him go. As I held him in my hands under the water, he began to struggle enough that I knew it was time to release him, but I really didn't want to let him go. He was such a cool looking fish. After watching him swim back down into the depths from which he came, I reached for my pack of cigarettes so I could have a celebration smoke. For I had finally gotten my "white whale".