Living the High Life

Today was a day that I will never forget, I got to float the river for the first time. Clint was generous enough to invite my roommate Jared and I for a half day of just hanging out and fishing on his float boat. I have to say that wade fishing will never be the same again, floating can definitely spoil you. The weather was against us for the most part with freezing cold temperatures and winds that seemed to blow straight in our face no matter which direction we turned. However, fishing sounded a lot better than laying around on the couch all day. We put the boat in the water around 11 a.m. and we were off! We were all fishing nymphs under indicators since that's what most of boat fishing is, and I started off with a Walts Worm and a fire orange Frenchie. We realized quickly that the fish were going to be slow to take anything and were very sluggish. The water was extremely cold for a tail water and the fish were definitely feeling it, strikes were subtle and fishing started out very slow. We worked our way down river and came to a deep run where I was then throwing a streamer just to see if we could get any follows at all. Mr.Brown decided that it was lunch time and slipped out from behind a rock and slammed it...FISH ON!!! We floated our way on down river and got to a couple spots where the trees didn't shade the river so much and were able to get into some numbers. Probably the second or third fish we caught one big enough where Clint was able to pump its stomach which revealed a few small stoneflys. We switched over and tied on a few stoneflys and that is when the numbers game took off. We went from hole to hole catching them here and there which overall added up to 30+ fish, not bad for a cold winter day. I was even able to get on the paddles and row a little bit which turned out to be a lot harder than what I thought it would be. Overall it was an awesome day and a great experience. If you have always wanted to do a float trip I highly recommend booking a trip with either Clint or Jason through Hookers Fly Shop.