Something a little different

[Vcool]

So it's not the big game fishing that most of the folks on here seem to get up to... but here are a few pics from my first time fly fishing. I took a spin towards the mountains with the most recent fishing guide in hand and decided to stop off at a nice little river to try my hand at it and see what I could catch.

On the drive there, this mule deer buck decided to cross my path, saw him coming and had time to get out the camera.

Here is the first place I stopped to fish, near a camp ground. This is looking up stream The river was quite shallow along this part, and the current was quite fast. Saw several bigger rocks rolling down the river. Didn't seem to fishy to me.

Same place, looking down stream. The pictures don't show the current too well, but let me tell you, it was fast. Cold too.

Moved further downstream, found a nice little spot, deeper current on one side, slower water beside it, good fishy spot.

This is my first arctic grayling, and fist fish on the fly rod. Caught him on an elk hair caddis.

Just to put her size in to perspective. (not very large)

The fish about to make a getaway.

Here is my second grayling. Apparently a male. Same fly, almost exactly the same spot.

A better pic of the sail. Apparently this is averageish size. The biggest on record was 8 lbs.

The view upstream from where I caught them.

The view downstream.

I probably had about 20 hits at the second spot, and none at the first, although they were about 150 yards apart. The fish were jumping and hitting everything, even pollen from willows that had landed on the water. All in all, good time.

[Ken Gargett]

terrific stuff.

interesting you say it didn't look fishy. my first impression was that it reminded me of a few streams in nz, most especially the upper grey river (last time i was there, i got a brown of abouit 8 1/2 so it looked fishy to me)!!

[Vcool]

The camera doesn't really capture it but the water across was less than 2 feet deep, at the first spot, with small hole that was about a foot or two deeper, nothing around it. The current there was so fast it was difficult to stand in.

[Ken Gargett]

that sounds ideal for a good trout! so all sight fishing then?

[LGC]

Nice pics! I need to visit that part of the country someday. I've never caught any grayling.

Never under estimate the shallow runs. Fish will sometimes hang in that well oxygenated water. I like to hit those areas with some tungsten bead head midges.

[Vcool]

Yes, mainly sight fishing. Once I found where they were, I felt stupid for not figuring it out sooner. They were everywhere, and it would have been rare if there was 2 minutes that one didn't surface or jump nearby.

The other neat thing that I learned about these fish was that they were quite difficult to spook. I spent a few hours casting to the pool and on my last cast I had one rise about 2 feet from the end of my rod, and another came up for a bug between my rod tip and my feet.