Just one more cast...

Last night was a very fun night out on the river. I headed over to the Kinnikinnic to a semi-secret spot that a buddy of mine gave me a map to and told me to meet him there. I was looking forward to getting out because I guessed the dry fly action would be good and there would be fish to be caught on the dry. Once I arrived at the spot parked my car, geared up and made the walk into the spot I found my buddy and surveyed the area. “Cool Spot!” I said to my friend, he agreed. He is a new fly fisherman so it has been fun to hang out together, I have been able to teach him a few things along the way and I think they have been helpful so that is fun for me. Anyway, I rigged my rod and took a moment to look at the river and see what the river was telling me to use. There was a lot of insect activity in the air and it appeared that the Caddis flies were finally hatching in some numbers. There were not a lot of rises but enough that I went straight for my dry box. I tied on a size 18 orange stimulator and made my first cast, perfect spot right at the edge of the seam, had a very nice drift but no takes. I made about 8 more casts varying my locations and finally my first take. After a short fight I had my first fish in the net, a small but feisty brown trout. I unhooked him said goodbye and put him back and decided to change flies. This time I picked a size 18 Parachute Adams. I have great luck with that fly on the Kinni and I figured tonight would be no different. Once again I made some casts and was getting a few more swipes, but no good takes. I moved around a bit on the run and tried different areas and different angles for casting. Had a nice drift going when splash, a nice take. This next fish was a little bigger and we had a nice struggle to the net. Once again another nice Kinni Brown was in the net. We said our hello’s although I am guess he was not really happy with me, but as I do with all of the fish I catch, I said hello, thank him for the fight and told him to get back out there and get bigger. They seem to like that last part. He swam away, I am sure freaked out by getting the crap beat out of him by what he thought was dinner, but I am sure he went right back to eating… I walked downstream a ways and worked the riffles with a small Caddis fly, the Caddis were indeed hatching and there were a lot of them fluttering about. The trout were rising more and more but they were indeed a bit picky, there were looking for a certain size for sure. But half the fun of fly fishing to me is figuring that part out. I made a number of casts with my newly tied on caddis fly but had no takes at all. So I deciding to throw on a wet fly and do some swinging. I was hoping to entice those trout feeding on the emerging insects. I had a few hits but either I missed the hook sets or they didn’t take the fly very well. I will go with the later idea, but it was a fun effort. I don’t do a lot of wet fly swinging so it was interesting to try. I am for sure going to pick up some more wet flies and put that in my back pocket as something to try once and awhile. While I was casting my wet fly I noticed the hatching caddis were getting bigger and there were a lot more of them. So it was time to return to a dry fly. I tied on a tan elk hair caddis and started casting. First cast, huge splash, sadly no fish. But I knew that there would be more. Second cast, my fly was right next to a real fly, guess which one the fish took? Right! He took the real one. It was pretty sweet to see though. I had some perfect drifts going and action all around but nothing hooked. I made a cast and had a good swipe at my fly, and at the same time my buddy said that he was going to call it a night and I said ok, that I would as well because I was not sure I could find my way out in the dusk. So I said, "one more cast", I threw my fly back in the same area as the strike I just had and sure enough, strike and fish on. How often does that happen? One more cast, catch a fish, it was sweet. After a nice little fight I had in the net a very feisty little Brook trout. It was very exciting to me, I hadn’t caught a Brook trout before so it was neat to finally have one in the net. He was pretty, nice coloring, and just a shade under 10” long. We exchanged hellos, took a photo or 2 together and said our goodbyes. He swam happily away and I walked away from the river through small clouds of caddis with a big smile on my face. I can’t wait to get back to that spot.