Jeff’s been up from Indiana fishing with us on the PM for the last couple days. The mission was to strip big streamers for pike during the days and mouse for browns at night. Friday night we hit the upper river and Jeff got into the rhythm of fishing in the dark quickly. He landed the first fish he rolled, a 14″ brown. We thought things were off to a good start. He continued to roll fish until 2am, some very large fish, but not one stayed hook for more than a few seconds. The same story played out last night. Jeff rolled even more fish, close to 20, and stuck two very large browns, but not one made it to the net.
I’m confident in alleging, despite Jeff’s insistence to the contrary, the transaction of a diabolical pact with the brown trout. Because while the browns have been less than cooperative, Jeff had his fair of epic fishing this weekend. He caught a mess of pike including two of the biggest I’ve ever seen come out of pike location X. These were some muskrat eaters. Baby raccoons. Tuber toes.
And if big pike weren’t enough, he caught the bonus of all bonuses on a mouse last night. Full report on that tomorrow.
The river is in good shape. We only really had one day of very hot weather last week and temps have come down to more seasonable levels with overnight lows in the 60s. Water temp in the upper river was 67 degrees last two days. Hopper fishing has been OK, not great. Mousing is the way to go, despite Jeff’s bad luck, and/or Faustian bargain. We received a good shot of rain yesterday, but not enough to do change the low, clear summer conditions.
