First time with double hand rod in 2019
Some riffles and runs have wide enough space for double hand rod.
The water level was 139 cm, flow 16,7 m3/s, temperature 4 C.
decided to try my Winston Microspey 4wt first time in this season. I didn't fish that rod the whole last year, because I was more keen on micro skagit. But now it's a good time and place to use it.
First, I went to the deepest pool in the river. I attached Guideline 3D shooting head Intermediate/Sink5/Sink6. This is the most dense head I have. Sinks as a brick. I attached unweighted white zonker on short (60 cm) monofilament leader.
This pool has very uneven bottom, covered with boulders of different sizes. So-called "rock garden".
I had few snags, and lost couple of files.
What I don't like in this shooting head, it's simply too long. It's 9 m long, and I have no space to strip the line. I cast across, do few strips, and junction point between the head and running hits the tiptop guide. Too soon.
But' despite of some discomfort, I got first trout. On the strip. Small rainbow.
That's white zonker on Daiichi 2050 hooks size 7, which I tied yesterday.
Due to many snags, I switched to lighter line. RW Ambush floating 290 grain, and 10' sinking tip S5/S6. Ambush is a little bit shorter (6 m), but it's also awkward in narrow pools. I wish it would be an integrated line. New Scientific Anglers Spey Lite integrated scandi is very similar to Ambush, should be a killer for trout applications. It is in my wish list.
I moved to smaller water, and decided to switch to single hand rod, and Skagit setup. OPST Smooth 175 in particular, paired with Epic Glass 580 5wt rod. Actually, OPST recommends 200 grain for 5wt SH rods, but I found that lighter line works too.
Below the bridge , river divided by island. Right side channel looks like a small river, more suitable for SH rod. I decided to explore it.
This riffle would be awesome to run a wet fly through it. But not now, it's too cold for it .
In the end of the riffle, there's nice deep pool. Should be good for nymph or streamer.
I was very curious about, how the river looks from above. I climbed to the cliff.
It looks fucking awesome from above! The view worth the effort. These dead trees in the water are traps for flies, but also excellent protection for trout.
I tried small streamer and wet fly. No results, only few snags.
I attached small red tag nymph, and got this. First brown for today.
Not a big fish, but quite strong, and it made few jumps. Looks like it recovered after spawning.
Below, the river splits to more small streams. Some of them are very narrow, and fast.
At the end of the island, there's powerful rapids. Not suitable place for fishing due to heavy flow, at least now . But could be usable in low water conditions.
Water temperature was nearly 4,3 C, and fish wasn't very active. But, I explored another section of river and found it's very appealing. Still better, than sitting at home and watching TV :-)
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