Yes, a bear does shit in the woods

As tirko would say when we encountered the several different piles of bear shit. but, in between these encounters were some sweet little holes and a lot of willing finned participants. tirko hadn't fished here before and i wanted to check out a new section since the other 2 times i had fished this creek were done so higher. the weather was perfect although early in morning the water was painfully cold, to the point that my wet wading feet were burning from the cold. to me it's always fun to hit different sections of water to see what kind character it has. this section did not disappoint. within the first hour and a half or so i caught my biggest fish out of the creek and then further up i caught even a bigger fish to top the earlier one. my biggest before had been about 14" but my best today was an impressive 17" that had the kind of girth that would make ron jeremy proud. ok, it was girthier then that. the stretch on my fingers was maxed. we were watching these fish pick off spruce moths by the dozen, which of course i had no moth patterns, who usually does? the closest candidate was a deer hair caddis. first cast and i landed a solid 15" class cutt and 2 casts later i land the prize of the day, an absolute tank of a buck. that's the most excitement i've shown on the water in i don't know how long. on the way up to where we eventually got out, we encountered several other mid-teens sized fish, including a real nice fish that we watched sitting in front of some fallen trees ease his way up to my green drake when out of nowhere this damn smaller fish beat the bigger one to the punch. the smaller fish raced pace the bigger one, smashed my fly and in the process came completely out of the water in acrobatic form, then tangled me up in some branches. it was cool to watch but i was bummed cause i wanted that much bigger fish. our day ended in a hole where i spent the longest time i have ever spent in a hole, trying numerous different patterns to coax a fish that was eating like it hadn't eaten in days. it was a tough fish to figure out cause it would never eat in the same spot consecutively. i'd watch him eat, so i'd think, ok, there you are, i'd cast there and while my fly is drifting he'd rise 7-8 feet away. after watching this enough times i just felt that it was the same fish and not a different fish. the colors were always the same and so was the size. i rose him twice to a green drake pattern but he didn't take. i would then switch after a bit to something different and come up empty handed, then threw on a deer hair caddis, he nailed it but was only on for about the count of 2. couldn't get him to come back up, meanwhile he is still engulfing moths with reckless abandon. i switched 3 more times but couldn't get him anymore. tirko tried with a couple different patterns with no luck. i think my determination to outsmart this fish had me in that spot for about an hour. i left feeling like i got kicked in the nuts. can't wait to face him next week. what a fun day!