I was thinking about this Teddy Roosevelt quote a lot on the drive home. By all surface indication, we had a great trip. My buddy and I spent 5 days camping and fishing on a beautiful stream. Overnight lows were in the 40s, sunny days in the upper 80s. I caught somewhere between 1 and 4 dozen fish per day, including some very nice specimens. The camp food and beer was great, especially since I took a "cheat meal" approach to the trip after strictly counting calories for the last 7 months. I got to spend a bunch of time with one of my favorite people.
So why did I feel a little disappointment? Well because I'd been to the same water during the same time frame the previous 2 years and done MUCH better. The fishing was "tough", I only got 8 fish on surface flies over the entire trip, only one of which was larger than 8". Large stretches of the day would go by with zero action. Water we were sure held many fish were completely unproductive. I had to dirty ass nymph to find any action. I caught 60% of my fish between 2 morning sessions, each about 2 hours long. We were limited to car camping and easy access water due to injury, no backpacking this year. I struggled to find the same level of joy in comparison to my previous visits.
Ultimately, the trip did what I needed it to, it reset my brain and gave me a moment to mark as the of summer and the closure I needed to mentally prepare for another school year. Despite not being the same as the past, it was still a great trip. I should have recognized that we needed to shift our fishing hours sooner, which would have increased our catch and reduced our empty flogging of water.
Anyways, here are some pictures.
The river valley was as gorgeous as always
The streamside wildflower meadows never disappoint
Nor did our streamside lunches
The fish, themselves, were beautiful
First fish
Pretty fish
Pretty big fish
Pretty, big fish
Perdigons, copper johns, and any jig head soft hackle nymph produced well in the am hours if you got it down deep
So why did I feel a little disappointment? Well because I'd been to the same water during the same time frame the previous 2 years and done MUCH better. The fishing was "tough", I only got 8 fish on surface flies over the entire trip, only one of which was larger than 8". Large stretches of the day would go by with zero action. Water we were sure held many fish were completely unproductive. I had to dirty ass nymph to find any action. I caught 60% of my fish between 2 morning sessions, each about 2 hours long. We were limited to car camping and easy access water due to injury, no backpacking this year. I struggled to find the same level of joy in comparison to my previous visits.
Ultimately, the trip did what I needed it to, it reset my brain and gave me a moment to mark as the of summer and the closure I needed to mentally prepare for another school year. Despite not being the same as the past, it was still a great trip. I should have recognized that we needed to shift our fishing hours sooner, which would have increased our catch and reduced our empty flogging of water.
Anyways, here are some pictures.
The river valley was as gorgeous as always
The streamside wildflower meadows never disappoint
Nor did our streamside lunches
The fish, themselves, were beautiful
First fish
Pretty fish
Pretty big fish
Pretty, big fish
Perdigons, copper johns, and any jig head soft hackle nymph produced well in the am hours if you got it down deep
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