The one that still gets away
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Article RatingI found the big rainbow one evening three weeks ago. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen it before, at least not in the skinny glass clear pool, where I watched as it twisted its shoulders into the sand and gravel stirring up nymphs. She - I assume the big rainbow was a female because males don't often grow that large.
I watched her one other evening just before dark and she rose once to sip a small dry fly off the surface. On some summer evenings a few tan caddis dip over the water, and I've caught a few trout on a tiny tan comparaduns tied on a size 20 hook.
That night I checked the sky and went back to the Jeep to pull on hip boots and string up a fly rod. It's a little seven-and-a-half foot bamboo made by Hal Bacon. He build rods for the Payne Rod Company in New York and went west to Oregon, when the company moved, then started building rods under his own name. I traded an Orvis six-and-a-half foot Madison Flea for it and its become my favorite since early spring, when the little brown stoneflies showed up to bring trout to the surface to feed.
That first evening I cast the tiny caddis imitation and twice the big rainbow rose, putting its nose right under the fly without taking. As the fly drifted over her for the third time it floated downstream another 10 feet before I started to lift it for another cast. A 16-inch rainbow came out of nowhere and gulped the fly, splashing and jumping all over the pool until it gave up and came in to let me take the hook out of its mouth. The big bow vanished.
I saw it again a few nights later. I brought two smaller friends but still big fish and I didn't string up a rod. Two anglers were downstream a pool and one was casting upstream 50 yards. I was pretty sure they didn't know what I was beginning to think of as my fish, so I stood and watched them until the last light winked out of the sky.
The other morning dawned dark and overcast and I found the big one once again working her pool, scraping along the bottom, darting after underwater food and opening her mouth to feed, showing white with every morsel.
For two hours I tried scud patterns, midge pupae, and even my go-to nymph that I tie with a topknot feather from a ruffed grouse. It's a simple soft-hackle pattern using the tip of the feather as a tail, the gray duff spun on with a dubbing loop and the side hackle as a leggy-looking collar.
She would come over and take a look at every new fly but then ignore it on subsequent drifts. When the clouds pushed east and the sun peeked through, the big fish dropped back to the very tail of the pool. Finally with a kick of her tail and a strong bulging ripple, she was gone.
Big fish don't haunt me but this one has worked its way under my skin. Usually I'm content to take whatever the water offers, happy to watch fingerling brook trout rise to my fly and on days when the trout seem to have lockjaw, I'll settle for chubs or even the rare bluegill. This fish is different. I'll let you know when I hook it.
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Don't forget to send in your antlerless deer license application. The first postmark the Game Commission will accept is Monday, Aug. 7.
