2022 Spey Day Turkey has concluded

Today when I woke up, I was still on the emotional high from yesterday.  

I looked at the USGS site and saw she was getting fed little by little from snow melt. Where I would fish her she goes through alot of gradient change. 

I would guess 20 feet vertical in 200 feet horizontal.  I walked the 1.5 miles to the one run I wanted to swing.

The part I enjoy fishing out of this section is not a traditional run. It's a boulder strewn riffle. The water is 2 to 4 feet deep with a wicked current all the way through the water column.  

I put on a piece of T-14 that is 9'-10" long making it 137 grains. I perfection looped a 3-foot piece of Seaguar Red label 12-pound test on it. I then put a conehead Halloween nightmare on it. These are sparsely tied and have a lot of action in the fibers in the water.  

I worked the water fan casting and using the PNW step down I proceeded to cover the water column. The first series was 30 feet from shore and the second was 50 feet from shore.  

I would downstream mend a belly on purpose into my line so the fly would sprint cross current. I caught that Ho using the hang down method yesterday.  

I would not pause and just would repeat the casting stroke when my Skagit become parallel with the shoreline.  

I was about 40% through the one of the last few swings. I don’t carry a loop anymore. I set the drag to a fighting the fish tension.  

The it happened before I knew it i could see it happening. My drag was making noise and my line was going up stream. I'm like am I dreaming? I did not cast upriver like that.    

Then common-sense kicks in its a fish a fish o my goodness Charlie Brown. 

The current was heavy and moving fast. The head I was using is 440 grain and the tip is 137 grains. The total weight was 577 grains, and it was being pulled up stream. I applied enough side pressure to pull the fish out of the current.  

I would learn this fresh Manistee hen was mad at the world. Now shes got a #4 hook stuck in her craw.  

I could see from her profile she was dime bright and highly motivated.  

I circled her into a large back eddy and tailed her.  

She was approximately 27" long and loaded with eggs. She also had been eating well.   

Unfortunately, my camera and my backpack and that was about 300 feet away from me up river.   

I did not want to put this warrior princess through any more stress. 

I placed a kiss on mykiss and sent her on her way once she kicked out of my hand up stream.  

I get such a rush from releasing a fish hot and breathing on her own.  

I began to walk back to my car. We are blessed here in the Great Lakes Region to have great park systems.   

I drove to check out another Lake Erie tributary. The parking lot was full and I'm like don't these folks have families lol. 

So, at this point I was ready to call an end to the trip.  I went to subway to grab my Thanksgiving dinner and a six pack Guinness.