I pulled over, parking on the shoulder of the road just past the bridge. It was disappointing to see another truck parked nearby, which meant I wasn’t going to have the river to myself.
“Oh well,” I thought as I climbed out, put on my vest, grabbed my fly rod, and walked down the embankment next to the bridge.
As I neared the water, a voice called out, “Hey! Can you give me a hand?”
I looked downstream, in the direction of the voice.
“Sure,” I yelled back. “What do you need?”
“I left my net up by you. Can you bring it down?”
“Sure.”
Instead of looking for his net, I walked the bank toward him, grabbed the net off my back, and went to work getting his trout into it.
“Wow!” I said. “That’s a football.”
The cutbow didn’t fit in my 16-inch net, flopping out several inches on each end. I did my best, and the stranger wetted his hands, grabbed the trout, and kept it under water.
“Any chance you can take a pic,” he asked me.
“You bet.”
I grabbed his phone, took several shots, and then watched as he put what I estimated to be a 24-inch fish back in the stream.
“That’s the biggest fish I’ve ever caught here,” the stranger said with awe.
“It was a monster,” I agreed.
“What did you catch it on?” I asked.
“A pink squirmy worm,” he said.
He showed me the fly he had tied. Nothing special about it, but then, that’s the thing about tying flies – complicated patterns don’t necessarily work better than simple patterns.
I didn’t have a pink worm, but I had a red San Juan worm. So, I tied that on, went upstream to the bridge, and gave it a shot. Nothing.
Tristian, as I learned the stranger was named, watched as I flailed away. After a few moments, he gave me one of his pink squirmy worms. While I tied it on, he jumped into the hole and made a cast. Fish on.
I stopped tying to net his next catch. As he went about dealing with the fish, I went back to tying the fly onto my leader.
Tristian cast again. Fish on. Again.
I stopped. Netted his fish. Then, made my own cast. Fish on. Again.
I worked my 18-inch rainbow to the bank. This time, Tristian netted the fish, took a pic or two of me, and we got back to it.
I’ve never seen anything like it. For the next thirty minutes, we cast into the same hole and pulled out big rainbow after big rainbow – pulling a total of 10 fish out before the hole played out. It was crazy awesome.
But that can be life here in McCall. Even though we’re heading into mud season, there are plenty of opportunities to get out and have fun – mountain biking is slowly coming on, golf will be here shortly, and fishing for big trout stuck in our local creeks and rivers while they wait for Cascade Reservoir to fill is always fun.
Of course, you’ve got to dress for success. In my case, you know it’s mud season when you spot me wearing my baby blue leggings or my baby blue pants – they’re my go-to mud season uniform. You’ll see me wearing them while mountain biking or fly fishing or hiking, sports where I’d normally wear shorts. Until shorts weather arrives, my baby blues do the job.
Here's hoping you’re spending time in your baby blues – getting after it during mud season. If you are, send us a photo or a note, and we’ll feature it on our website or social channel. We love mail!
See you out there.
