Bourbon, Flies, and Lies: March 2024

I have fished the Fuego River for several years and she has never ceased to amaze me, but today she raised the bar.

I grabbed my custom Rainshadow IF1086-4 – 10’8” 4pc (6wt) rated for 275-375 grain weight window. I slapped on a 375-grain max short 20’8” head Skagit along with it a “don’t laugh” 10’ salmon steelhead sinking leader 2”/sec. This is the same exact setup I used in Montana. I used 3 feet of 8-pound test floro for tippet (the three feet was added so I am less likely to blow my anchor).

I did not hit the water until about 1400. The overnight low was just above freezing and so for me there was no point showing up any earlier.

I drove west like Fieval to get to the Fuego River. I arrived to the urban jungle and got ready. People looked at me like they often do like I have a screw loose! Chuckling, I headed to the river.

I found her to be very low for this time of year and with most of the reel steelheaders up on the tribs I was assured to have this all to myself.

I got there and saw ppl enjoying the sun and the nice weather. Our winter this year has been mellow. We will pay the price in the summer while the west is on fire we will join them with our drought.

A former friend of mine Marc Crapo made me a nice fly wallet that I decided to bring with me today. It’s been a while since I have used my fly wallet.

I start covering the traditional holding waters for any warm water fish species.

I did not care if I hooked any fish today. It’s been a minute since I have cast one of my two handers. I cack handed “look up that definition lol” step casted downstream for about 100 yards and with no love I went elsewhere.

So, at this point I had been casting for maybe 40 minutes. Then I made a move down stream by maybe 10 miles.

Well, what I did not know until just now they stock rainbows in this section of the Fuego River. So, although it was on the swing I thought it was really rare, but apparently knot!

The pattern was pretty basic tied on a number 1 2220 Daiichi streamer hook. The body is white schlapen “wide palmered to be sparse”. Then tye in a sparse collar of flashabou and then a heavy palmered collar of mallard flank.

This is as simple as it gets, I think for a swinging minnow pattern and lol if this one head gets any bigger it’s going to need two zip codes! So, funny thing this is also my gar fly pattern! The streamer hook is other than being a huge hook size for trout, it is 4X long!!!

I got to my second spot and waded out a third of the way out to the river. Onlookers are like what in the world is he doing? This perch was looking over downstream a slick in the river. A slick is a piece of water that is relatively flat in the middle because it’s between two tailouts!

So, at this point its been over an hour since I started to drown flies. In reading the water I put down stream mend in my cast to sed the fly screaming across the river. From what my friend has told me who fishes out west in Oregon for saltrun steelhead this will trigger fish if they are present!

Holy snickers it happened! My line went stiff mid current! I put side pressure on the fish and he/she did not like that! The fish leapt out of the river and I bowed to it like my Pap taught me.

This would be the moment I realized it was a trout I hooked! A trout how in the sam hell was this a trout and how in the hell did it get here?

The fish fell back into the river and snuggled with the gravel digging in. I rotated the rod to be perpendicular to the riverbank and the trout did not like that at all.

The fish tried to dislodge the hook, but that number one streamer was buried deep in the jaw!

I brought the fish to hand and treated it with all due respect and turned him/her loose to fight another day. I would hook two more and broke them off because I was genuinely worried others would see me hook these fish. Later I learned that these fish were stocked lol!

I will be back again someday for another challenge!

Be well,

Sonder