Day 2, 1st on the River

 It rained ALL night long.  Luckily though it was not bitter cold when we awoke the next morning.  We started the day with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and put away all the gear and the soaking wet tent.  I don't think the tent got put away dry much at all that week.  We arranged everything in the boat as necessary and we set off. It was about 10:30 by the time we got on the river.  There was a good stretch of water upstream of the ramp that I wanted to fish but hadn't the time for.  Maybe next time.

 It hadn't rained that morning but it was expected to rain for the majority of the day.  This being said we decided to throw a tarp over all of out gear in the back of the boat.  Clouds were always in view that day. 

 We caught whitefish right off the bat that day and all day long.  We were using two sizes of stone fly nymphs that had worked real well for us in previous years.  We threw some streamers in some inviting water but to no avail.  I had a large cutthroat chase a big white streamer in but it gave up as it got closer to shore.  This was disappointing  because the hole I was fishing in seemed to be perfect. 

 We saw tons of Bald Eagles that day.  In fact we floated right underneath a couple.  I absolutely love hearing the call of these animals.  Its a very high distinct screech.  All day long we heard it.  It's a neat experience to watch them soar all around also.  I found it is very hard to row, fish, and take pictures while on a big rushing river.

We stopped at nearly every good looking gravel bar or inside turn to try our luck.  We caught a lot of whitefish with our nymphing rigs.  In fact I broke in the new rod with some whitefish (I took the streamer off and rigged it with a hopper and stone fly dropper). 

 We saw plenty of Eagle nests along the way too.  This particular nest had two eagles in it.  I wish the pictures had turned out better but its hard to focus in with a zoom lens and keep it still while floating down the river in a boat.

Along this stretch of water was a lot of nice cabins and homes.  This is the stretch of river that is above the canyon stretch that is nothing but wilderness for miles. This particular house was interesting.  The lawn was emerald green and immaculate.  I could see through every window.  I noticed that the interior was decorated as a rustic cabin might be.  Personally, I would probably want to buy this house but I can hear Sara now, "the drive way must be horrible in the winter!"  Can't ask for a better back yard though!

 Here was another eagle we saw later in the afternoon.  It's body against the blue blue sky makes for a pretty picture.  These birds watch as you float near but seem rather trusting as you float past because they never turn their head.

 We pulled into a campsite that we have used before.  It is the first one after the ramp that we normally use in Conant.  It is right across from a huge cattle ranch.  The field across the river had hundreds of cows in it and they made it all the way down to the bank of the river.  We set up camp early so as not to get caught in the dark.  After the tent was up and the rain fly was hanging on a limp because we were trying to dry the inside of the tent after it was soaked from being packed away all day.  Howard was cooking some cans of clam chowder up on the stove.  I decided to try out a run right in front of our campsite.

I waded out past the cove behind me in the picture and started catching fish right away.  I had tied on a bead-headed pheasant tail nymph to drop from my stone fly.  I was catching white fish on both!  Some of the fish ate the pheasant tail but got caught up on the larger hook of the stone fly.  This happened twice and you can always tell because it feels like the fish are twice as big as they actually are since you pull them in sideways.  It was a great half an hour or so of fishing.  I bet I caught nearly a dozen right there at camp.  To top it all off, I landed this monster rainbow (the first trout of the trip) with my last cast right before I walked in for dinner.  Howard asked if I wanted to keep it like we are told to do with the rainbows but I told him it was too much work to fillet it up and I had no problem with catching rainbows.

 Howard was gracious enough to snap some pictures of me fighting some of the fish.  These sort of pictures are always my favorite because they capture the action I was going through and shows the moment for what it truly was.  We went to bed a little later that night.  We just couldn't get up out of our seats on the bank.  The clouds from the day were long gone and the sky was full of stars.  It was a nearly full moon and the sky was lit up.  There was also the mooing of the neighboring cows in the air.  We had some Butterfingers that Karen had given me for my birthday for my birthday cake.  It was in fact my birthday that day.  Howard and I agreed that there is no better way to celebrate.