Went fishing yesterday with Sheats and teamed up with Judson Rogers and a bunch of his buddies. THe spot required a pretty decent hike in which is great because it keeps out most people. Sheats and I fished on the far side of the river which required a lot of billy goating which at times got kind of annoying but ultimately aids the fishing for the same reasons as above. Just to give you an idea we spent a lot of time with our rods in our mouth because we were on all fours trying not to slide off the mountain. THis place continues to blow my mind because I have never seen a place except for newzealand that seems to only have huge fish. The water is crystal clear and while you are billy goating around the cliffs on the side of the river you consistenly look down into these sexy holes that are just loaded with big fish that you probably will not be able to catch. For the most part the day was pretty slow. We were all fishing hard and throwing everything we had at them. Sheats was even fishing 7x which in my opinion is retarded because even if you hook one of these things it would be just short of a miracle if you land it on 7x beacuse not only are the fish huge but the water is cranking. Anyway most of us were still skunked at noon. I hooked a smaller fish in the ass and was pumped to have the skunk out until sheats informed me that does not count. Anyway at about 3:00 right before I was ready to go lay down in the woods and take a nap I took off my strike indicator lengthened my leader by about 3 feet and tied on a huge stone fly nymph with two big weights tied into it. Then I put on a size 16 dsheats special(caddis fly that Sheats ties) about 2.5 feet behind the stone fly, and despite my better judgement I was using 6x fluoro carbon. Anyway for whatever reason this seemed to be the ticket. I think it was all about getting the caddis fly at the right depth and far enough away from the stone fly that it could get a good drift. Also it is worth noting that there was an incredible caddis hatch coming off but absolutely no fish rising. Anyway I proceeded to farm 4 big fish two of which were right in front of Sheats which makes it sting even more and then break off two nice fish. I was just about ready to snap my rod in half when I hooked the monster below. I will be the first to admit that this fish was almost a total fluke. I might as well have won the lottery. I could see the fish stacked in the current about 20 feet down stream and I just felt like the cast was where it needed to be and I saw the fish open its mouth without even moving so I set the hook. Took me close to ten minutes to land the fish not because if fought that hard but just becuse the thing was so heavy. I am pretty sure even though the pics don't do it justice this was the heaviest fish I have ever landed in America. It made one good run and tried to jump but it only got its fat ass about halfway out of the water. Ended up catching a couple more fish to round out the afternoon nicely only to find out that in addition to the PBRs Sheats stached in the river Jud and posse had two bottles of whiskey on ice waiting for us at the car. Wonderful ending to a fantastic day. Also worth noting that Sheats and I left at 6:30 am and did not get home til after 11pm.
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