Friday Fishing Report: Actual Fishing

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After the dog fiasco I made sure Rocky was securely in his kennel and hiked back down to the river for another go. I got my exercise today.
When the boys and I were in Spokane on Wednesday we stopped at three different sporting goods stores. We got Jeremiah's new baseball cleats and rod and reel at The Sports Authority. Then we stopped at Big Five to look at laser scopes for air soft rifles--something Isaiah is very interested in right now. Then I took them to The White Elephant.
The White Elephant is a funky old gun and tackle shop. It's where I went with Pete when he needed a license for the Grande Ronde, and it turned out that John ended up there on his way down for the same reason. So we looked at lures and knives and bait and guns and ammo and camping gear and talked about fishing with Uncle Pete and Uncle John.
And I bought some hooks and stayed up last night tying up some flies. After my last river outing I wanted some medium sized, weighted flies to fish with the sinking tip. I ended up with these.
I hiked a little farther to my old access point this afternoon, maybe subconsciously trying to go where Rocky wouldn't have a chance to find me.
It was another beautiful day, and the BWO's were hatching more heavily than I've seen them, glimmering in the sun. I also saw Swallows for the first time this season, something I look forward to every spring.
And this is a beautiful stretch. It puts you upstream of the glide. In summer it is deeply shaded and cool under these trees. It's actually the tailout of a long, slow, deep part of the river, so deep and slow that there's hardly any discernible current. I tried nymphing that section the other day, but it seemed like more than the proverbial shot in the dark.
The river is still running low and clear and cold. The low and clear part of the equation is the reason I'm fishing with a lighter six pound tippet. The cold part is why I still think small and deep is the way to go. I tied on one of the krystal flash stones.
I worked my way down to where the tailout forms this V as the current converges and picks up speed between shallower rocky bars. Seems I heard somewhere that "fishing the V" is a good thing.
I took a break and contemplated the glide. My top half was still hot from the sun, but my bottom half needed to warm up.
I tried the stones and the little streamer on several passes through the glide and got exactly one little bump. By then the sun had gone behind the ridge and all of me needed to warm up.
I had just decided to call it a day when Rocky found me again. This time, though, he brought Jeremiah and his friend Adrian along. I waded across and joined them.
Jeremiah had brought his rod along, though it didn't have anything tied on the line, and he didn't bring anything to tie on. That's a good sign; it was just natural to bring it, just in case.
By the way, this is in as deep as Rocky got on this trip. While the boys climbed around under the bridge I tied on a small beadhead wooly bugger that I tied up a couple of weeks ago and went ahead and fished that run.
I promptly hooked a little trout. Jeremiah saw it and said, "It looks like it was just born!" I don't think he was rubbing in the fact that it was of an exceedingly small size.
It was dusk and soon the boys were cold, so they took off and headed back to the ranch. I made sure they took Rocky with them. I was shivering but finished fishing the run. I caught two more trout, these very nice--over 12 inches, the last maybe pushing 15.
You'll have to take my word for it; it was too dark for good photographic evidence.
It always feel good to catch trout, but I'd like to have another go with a Steelhead before the season ends at the end of the month. That's not very far away.
Must make it a priority.