We rose with the first light and passed two frustrating, fishless hours casting to a river with no visible insect activity.

A rainbow to remember

It wasn't until the sun got high enough to shine on the water directly that we started to see bugs hatching and, soon after, trout rising. We caught a few small rainbows around 10 inches long as the hatch gained momentum.

About 20 minutes into catching fish, I saw the big nose of a larger trout feeding directly downstream from me. I inspected my fly to make sure it was still in good shape and added some extra floatant.

I turned downstream and started false casting as I lengthened my line. By now, Mark, who was fishing just upstream from me, saw what I was up to and stopped fishing to watch.

Football with Fins

I laid out a nice long cast, wiggled some curves into it to give my fly some float time and let it ride the currents right over that trout's head. On the very first cast, that big snout surfaced right in front of my fly and swallowed it whole.

The rest happened in slow motion. I raised my rod to set the hook. It felt rock-solid. This was a nice fish. Just then the fish jumped clear out of the water almost two feet into the air. It looked like a football with fins.

I shot Mark a surprised look and noticed his eyes were almost as wide as mine. He waded down to me with his net as I finished a terrific battle with the fish. We netted it, breathed a sigh of relief, and started to laugh at our good fortune.

It was a fat rainbow, 18 inches long, a dark fish with a fabulous red stripe running down its sides. Mark took some pictures and I released him back into the river. We continued to catch fish all morning, but that was the highlight of the trip. All told, we probably caught 50 fish on that trip and we never saw another angler the entire time.