| A
friend of Marek’s came with us, Bill was from Colorado
and wore a white cowboy hat. He is a Mercedes Benz salesman.
On his second or third cast, Bill was smashed by something
enormous, his missed it. I moved to the next corner and the
same thing happened to me.
The next cast, I hooked the best of five great rainbows about
2lb all from the same run. They fight like hell and are in
peak condition. Marek took a whitefish on the hopper, how
it got the hopper in its small mouth I will never know.
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They fight well and look just like a bonefish. They rise differently
and repeatedly until they get your fly.
Looking
up I couldn’t believe I was fishing in a pristine river
running through desert badlands with the mountains, canyons
and gorges in the background. What a day, we all caught fish
wading and searching the ripples and glides. Once a hatch
got going and I could see 20 fish rising within casting distance.
I will return.
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Thursday I went with Marek
to the Stillwater. I headed upstream, fished to the bridge
and landed a 10” rainbow. The river cuts left and a
high bank has been repaired with large stone, like on the
swampy.
I glanced
over my shoulder to see a diversion channel behind me. About
a metre wide, deep, with grassy banks, it was just like Findlay’s
Water Race. I though of old Ossie Mills, he would have loved this.
I abandoned the river and followed the diversion channel.
I took a nice brownie on the hopper, just like home.
In the next two hours I released several
more lovely brownies, about a pound each. |
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I
reached the diversion gate that channels water out of the
river so I was now back on the main river. Looking up, I saw
a party of horse riders all wearing Stetsons and the usual
cowboy clobber. Set against the landscape it was really authentic
western stuff.
Returning
down the river I came across a family of Beavers sitting up
on a big pile of sticks and logs. They chew down trees a foot
thick at the base, drop them in the river, choke it up and
the river spreads out and becomes heavily braided.
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