East of the Cascades

The other day my buddy john said that after a year or so he was ready to go fishing. 6:30 saturday morning came early. made the 3 hr. trek down the highway and when we arrived it was colder then a witches tit, but at least the wind wasn't blowing. we started a bit lower then normal to make sure we got a full days worth of fishing in. 3 or 4 bends up i was into my first 2 fish, the first i lost and while fighting the 2nd one and reeling in line my spool of my lamson velocity (hard alox) came off and dropped in the river. so the fish and the spool are heading downstream. i tried kicking my spool closer to shore but couldn't get it done in the current. so with me approaching a deep drop off quickly i had to reach down in the foot or so of freezing cold water to grab my spool. i put it in my pocket and had to strip the fish in. i would've been really bummed out if i lost the fish cause of my reel malfunction. this is the 4th time in a year that my spool has just randomly come off and today just like last week, with the cold temps., my drag gave out and my reel was free spooling. GARBAGE! i like this reel so i am going to send it in to lamson this week and see what they can do for me. john was having a frustrating time of it. he wasn't touching any fish and i could tell by his gestures that he was getting a bit annoyed. i had gotten into several fish and he just couldn't hook up, even with some of the same flies as i was using. we got to my favorite hole and i got into a vantage point to be able to spot for john. i was able to see adozen or so good looking fish milling around and john soon got tangleded up and had to re-rig so i grabbed my rod and gave it a whirl. a few casts later i had a nice 18"er in the net. while we were fishing there 4 other fly fisherman walked by. it looked like they were hoping to find MY hole unoccupied. first come first serve. i was bummed to see them cause i figured they would get to the next hole iwanted to fish before we did. we left that hole for some new water and new fish and was releaved to see those other guys walking back down so they never made it to the next hole i wanted to hit. we walked past a couple of duck hunters that were hidden in some brush, scared the shit out of me. up to the hole we went. this hole had produced some good fish the last couple of times i fished it. i could see them sitting on the bottom but no luck. i did hook one of them but had my flies busted off and john finally did manage a couple of fish but they were a bit on the smaller side for that river. he was still happy just to ge tthe shcnide off. there were somemore holes tohit but by this time our hands and feet were just to damn frozen to spend time in all the holes so we skipped a few and walked to just one more. while john was casting, my finger tips were so numb i had to stick them in my pants and cupmy balls to warm them babies up. it's amazing how well that works. as i was warming my hands up i saw a good fish sitting fairlyclose to shore so i suggested to john to target it. i spotted for john while he made some attempts at it. on what ended up be the home run cast i watched this fish move about 6 feet at his flies andas soon as i told john to set the hook, his indicator went down and the set was made. it ended up beeing johns biggest river fish on a fly rod at 21" even. a solid and beautiful buck. that fish made the day worth while for both of us. for john cause he hasn't had a whole lot of success and for me cause i was glad to see john finally get such a nice fish. today was also my maiden voyage for my new tires. i just got a pair of the new korkers predators with the kling on sole. i really like the boa system and the traction i had on the snow and in the water was great. did not slip once.