Flows: 3000 CFS (Too high)
Temps: 33-43 (Too Cold)
Dates: 4/22-4/23
We got a late start, 4:00 am Friday morning. Normally, we are into the Ashley National Forest by the time daylight starts to diminish the darkness. This time we are just into Evanston when the shades of violet and dark blue blemish the sky. Turns out that it was perfect. We pulled into McDonalds (gearing up for a long day of fishing) and they just opened the drive through as we sat there. Talk about timing.
We realized as we drove through Ashley National Forest that at temperatures of 27 degrees, we were in for cold days. We arrived at Little hole around 7:50 and hooped and hollered being the first and only vehicle in the parking lot. We had great expectations and were excited to get to our favorite starting point near the bathrooms (about 1.5 miles up river). We made good time walking, but both noticed that we weren't seeing near the fish that we normally see. Fish weren't rising very often. Hardly any fish were visible along the bank. When we got to our spot, there were no fish rising, and the water was so high that we couldn't even wade in to hit our spot. Didn't matter anyway, the fish weren't rising at all. We spent an hour trying to get something out of that hole, but it wasn't in the cards, so we started up the river. The next section was much calmer along the shore, so we started half heartedly throwing in our lines. I hooked one that swam away from me and downstream. I had on the "Gator Gloves" and couldn't get my drag loose in time and POP, the line snapped. We ended up fishing that run of the river for the next 45 minutes. I hooked at least 10 fish, but only landed one. After the river bend, CJ landed a reported 3lb Rainbow that was fat as a football. We fished our way up to Mother-in-law rapids and caught 3-5 more fish on BWOs. The water was so incredibly thick with BWOs that it was hard to find your fly amongst the real things. We would find the occasional fish rising near the shore and tempt it with our flies. It was slow fishing, but we would catch 1 or 2 every hour we fished.
Around 3:30-4pm we started heading back down towards little hole. There were only a few fishermen up where we fished, and we expected the trail back to be covered with fishermen, but it was very sparse. We had plenty of opportunities to fish on the way back. We found some risers and hooked into a couple more, but it was the sore backs and frozen hands that had us back at the car around 6pm. It felt like the earliest departure from the river that we had ever had.
We headed towards FGR to our room and a nice meal, but CJ wanted to "test" his new 4x4. He drove it up a road and about 300 yds in and decided that it was a little too rugged for his liking. He turned back and claimed I was trying to ruin his new truck.
