Small waters have always held a special appeal for me. They exist in beautiful, uncrowded places, full of wild fish that really aren’t too picky. I like being able to throw three or four patterns in a small box and not have to worry about matching the hatch exactly. Everything is downsized, even the fish, but that is just part of the fun.
Last Sunday, Shane and I took his dad, Bryan, up to Hyalite Creek just south of town. Normally I don’t like to name where I’m creek fishing but since Hyalite is already known to every fly fisherman in town it’s ok. We were just after a leisurely day on the water, nothing too serious.
Photo by Shane Rickert
Photo by Shane Rickert
Hyalite is the perfect lazy afternoon fishing spot. You can be there in 20 minutes, spend a couple hours, get your fix and come home. The fish are feisty, access is super easy, and they will eat damn near anything. A big one out of there is pushing double digits, so you better have a light rod.
Photo by Shane Rickert
We parked at the bridge, got geared up and headed upstream. Gotta love wet wading season. It’s so nice just rigging up a rod and heading out and not having to deal with waders. Ahhh.
Between three of us, I bet we caught almost 30 fish over the course of a couple hours. All on dries, and all healthy, aggressive fish. Definitely a good afternoon. I finally got the trophy shot I have been looking for for years… All over social media, blogs, magazines, etc, all you see are pictures of anglers posing with big fish. Which is cool. But people take that a little too seriously. So on my smallest fish of the day, Shane took this no nonsense, big fish trophy photo:
Photo by Shane Rickert
Let me tell you, on the 5 weight I was fishing, he put up quite a fight. I was almost a little under gunned with that rod…
The evening ended with the three of us drinking beer on the back balcony, talking fishing and just about anything we could think of. Sunday’s don’t get much better than that.
