It was a cool, cloudy April day when I decided I’d had enough of the office and needed to get out and fish. I had a pretty nice arsenal of freshly tied nymphs I was dying to try, and I’d had pretty good success in this stretch of creek for the past few days. It had snowed an inch or two earlier that morning, but most of it was melting off pretty good and I figured the water was still fairly warm from the previous few sunny days. So I took the dog, loaded up the truck with waders, fishing gear and extra clothes, and went over to the river.
I had found a pretty decent little hole the last time I was out here and figured I’d try it right off the bat. It was still a bit early in the spring and the water didn’t seem quite warm enough to get the fish moving out of the slow, deep resting holes.
I waded over to a good casting spot down from the hole and made a quick, short cast. The drift was short, the strike was instant, and I had my first fish on, a nice little rainbow.
I’d noted earlier that during summer the majority of the fish caught in this reach of stream are brown trout, so I was surprised to see another rainbow so early in the trip. Then it hit me. I picked up the fish and gave it a gentle squeeze near the anal pore. Sure enough, the fish was a ripe male rainbow, ready to spawn.
The warm weather we’d had the previous few days had triggered the rainbows to move up from the big river and make their way to the spawning grounds that lie several miles upstream from here. They were on their way up, and with the cool weather this morning, had stacked up together in the slow deep pools.
I can’t quite remember catching so many fish while standing still in a single spot. I think I caught about 15 rainbows in that one little pool before I finally decided to move on up the creek. A couple were actually in the 16″ range, certainly not residents of this small, unproductive stream.
It turned out I’d hit the rainbows just at the right time. I’ve been back to that pool four times since, and haven’t been able to catch more than 3 or 4 fish each visit. It was fun while it lasted. I’ll keep hitting the spot periodically, but I’m already looking forward to catching the rainbow run early next spring!
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