A Tale of Two Mornings

After a long drive and a longer day of fishing, sleep came easy for us. While Austin and Pat opted for their tents, I slept in my hammock. The temperature dropped into the thirties but I was still comfortable in my cheap sleeping bag. As we awoke from our slumber we restarted the fire to finish off the sausages from the night before and began preparing for another day on the water. Our preparation pace slowed as we realized that no one was around and we had most of the entire river to ourselves. It was already ten o'clock and we geared up awaiting the slowly cooking sausages and the wild trout a football field away…

Breakfast...

Morning view…

The fish mobile got trashed...

Essentials...

Old reliable...

The days river is the anthesis of the one fished on the prior day. This one is pocket water heaven and features wild brown and brook trout in every likely holding area. Though, they are no pushovers like the stocked bows. We had to work for these fish and make sure that our presentations were free of vertical and horizontal drag. Easier said than done on a raging river with a steep gradient. All fish came in the deepest, slowest pockets where a tuck cast and tungsten got deep quick. Some clever mending and a whole lot of high sticking made sure the flies stayed there long enough to entice a trout from the depths. The strategy worked well in the morning before the rain came.

Can you really catch a prettier brown?

It was supposed to rain all weekend and thankfully it did not. However, once the rain came, it came down in buckets. It didn't take long for the rain to saturate our "waterproof" jackets and slowly bring bring a chill in the rapidly dropping air temperature. We fished on for quite sometime landing a few more brown trout. With an hour left a daylight, the sudden realization that we needed a fire dawned on us. We headed back to camp to conjure up some form of shelter from the downpour.

I was pumped to get Pat on this fish...

The permanent location of our campsite made it a little difficult to set up the tarp. We used two standing trees and backed up the Subaru onto a stump for a third anchor point. The fourth anchor was a free standing stick that used the base of the fire pit as a base. As the rain piled on top of the tarp, the stick would shift allowing the water off the tarp. It worked well and we were able to change into dry clothes and enjoy the night, the mud, and the food.

MacGyvered...

Mud…

A block of Spam for dinner...

Unbeknownst to us, the storm system passing through was about to get a whole lot worse in the middle of the night. Around 2 a.m. I awoke to a soaked through sleeping bag. The winds had blown half of my rain fly off their tie down points and I had no idea until I started to get wet. I crawled into the back of the Subaru for one of the worst nights sleep of my life. In the morning, snow was coming down hard and Pat and Austin cleaned up camp as I crawled into Pat's 5 degree sleeping bag to fight off hypothermia.

Austin hacking a frozen Cliff Bar in half...

We left as soon as camp was cleaned up as we had a date with the Environmental Film Festival in D.C. to catch one of the first showings of Felt Soul Media's newest environmental documentary: Damnation. Smelling like campfire, we thoroughly enjoyed the flick as it more than lived up to the hype. Arriving back after midnight, another Los Trios trip came to a close...