Paraleps, Hendricksons, and a Big Wild Brown!

Early this morning Nunzio and I went to do some scouting for sea run brown trout. The weather and tide were garbage, so as expected the fishing was crummy. But the low tide shows us the structure and when the run really ramps up we should be able to catch some here. 

I screwed around for a while waiting for the weather to improve so that I could go target wild trout. It was been a little while since I last fished for wild browns because of the limited local options during the closed season. But today I had the time so I went for it. Boy am I glad I did that!

Thee were bugs EVERYWHERE! The water was loaded with freshly hatched caddis larvae, Paraleptophlebia were hatching and there were stoneflies and hendricksons about too. Nunzio had given me a new Rio suppleflex and I wanted to try it out.... here is what I learned right away:
Do not use it for short-line nymphing. Strike detection is a pain.
It is by fa the best leader I have ever used for dry flies and shallow wets.

I didn't get much of anything for a long time, then I came to this pool There were four fish rising. Three nice browns and one dinky one. I tied on a parachute hendrickson and stuck the closest immediately. It fought hard. It was stubborn. It jumped. God I love wild trout.

The next fish, which I managed to photograph taking a Paralep, was doing methodical head and tail rises near a rock. I got the fly in his feeding lane and he was on.

In the pool bellow were some vigorously rising fish. I caught a decent one and one juvenile, and missed a few takes. Check out the spots on the big one!

Finally I reached a pool with a rock over hang. There were three fish rising in the feeding lane right bellow it. I quickly landed the smallest, shown above. Then I tied on a new fly, a size 16 mahogany dun, and put a cast in front of a fish that was loudly gulping in mayflies every few seconds. It took with a magnificent head and tail rise, and I new immediately that this was a special fish. It began bulldogging into the deep undercut, and when it realized that wasn't giving it any help it ran at me then around the rock in the middle of the pool. It began jumping like a little salmon, just over and over and over. It refused to let me touch it for a while but eventually calmed down. Holy shit what a beautiful fish! I have not caught a brown this size is a small stream for a few years, and frankly doing it on a dry was just awesome! This fish was very close to 15 inches and fat. I could not have been happier. My excited laughing and shouting echoed down the valley. I took a short video of the release. This fish was strong! I hope to come back and meat him again when he is 18 inches.