Spending the day being guests of the Spinnerfall Lodge, and exploring the broad spring creek waters that are Fall River has left my friend and I pretty pooped out. Sack time by nine o’clock, and up for a complimentary full breakfast buffet by eight. We weren’t to meet up with our guide, Cody, until around nine the following morning. Perfect!
At the appointed hour we are driving down the broad, graveled drive under the massive country log sign of the Circle 7 Guest Ranch. On both sides of this drive are the cool, lush greens of new growing hay, and some animals a short distance across the fields. At the end of the drive are rambling ranch buildings, surrounding the square of lawn with walkways and a gazebo. There are more rental houses here along the river, a small tackle shop, an access to the river for launching, and a couple of ginormous barns stuffed with their award winning hay.
We use a walkway between two of the rental houses that leads down to a small dock where a bunch of flat bottomed john boats are moored. Cody leads us to one on the end, and we get loaded up as Cody sizes up our equipment while courteously probing about our experience levels. He was ready to provide all the gear needed, but we opted for our own stuff.
John boat loaded, up the river we go!
Cody began pointing out big rainbow trout swimming away from the boat’s shadow almost from the beginning, but when we arrived where my pal and I anchored the previous day, the groups of fish fleeing became much larger. We ooed, and awed, and didjaseethesizeofthatone’ed all the way from there to the stretch of water Cody had in mind for us to fish. There are so, so many big rainbow trout in that water!
We anchored and Cody tied flies and indicators to our lines. The flies were of his own design, and we did catch some nice fish, but I never did see what they were. I think he was cagey about that, and I didn’t think about it until the following day when my pal and I were discussing what to use. It went something like this; “Did you see what we were using yesterday?” “No, I always passed the line back to him.” They were itty bitty though.” “What the heck were they?””I duno, I didn’t see em.”
Cody did tell us how he determined what to use by inspecting some of the grasses floating by. He showed us all the little larvae, and nymphs adhering to the grass. He used these indicators for size and color in an artificial. We used his teaching, and managed to boat a couple of nice trout!
Still on the previous day though, we fished the morning and a couple hours into the afternoon where the bite kind of just pooped out. We went back in with agreement to meet back at the Circle 7 a little before seven o’clock.
It had been a really great day. We caught fish. We learned from our guide’s experience. We had great food. What’s not to like? The only thing is we didn’t get into the hex hatch yet. I will have that for you in a couple of days.
No, don’t look at me that way! I promise, I won’t take months to get it done. So please stay tuned.
Mr Hook