We hiked several hundred yards downstream from the cabin, crossed several fences, and I stepped into the water at last while Dave detoured through the willows to the next pool upstream. Two fish were dimpling the water in the center flow of the short pool above me taking small PMDs. One fish looked decidedly small by the rise, the other uncertain. I tied on a #14 Cahill knowing it was a bit too large but figuring I could always shift to the really small stuff if needed. The first cast through the run put the lower fish down, but the second cast brought the smaller fish, which jumped repeatedly and fought strongly. I was surprised at its size and girth when I finally brought it to hand, a full 19 inches of gorgeous Brown trout. This might work out pretty well after all, I thought. Then Dave yelled from the pool above that he had hooked a 22 inch Brown, so I waded up to see. It too was a deep, fat, heavily muscled Brown. But what was amazing to me was that there was no pool in sight. Dave had hooked the fish in a thin tailout only 6 inches deep. Dave still had several fish rising above him so I detoured through the willows to leapfrog to the next pool. As I did so I saw a small roothole along the bank with an overhang of branches. I stopped long enough to snake a fly under and a fish materialized and sucked in the fly. It jumped, revealing its size, ran out, then back into the roothole, then took off downriver toward Dave. Since I had 4X tippet on and didn't want to disturb Dave's fish I really leaned back hard and the fish beached itself. It too was a 22 inch Brown. Alright, I thought, I can live with this. Again I had underestimated the fishes size, and its condition, by its girth, was remarkable. I continued on to the next pool which was really fishy, long and deep and slow with a downed tree trailing over the lower half. Three or four fish were rising along the sweep of its branches. The first fish I hooked was a 12 inch Brown that jumped and ran and put down all it's nearby neighbors. Dave caught up to me just as I stung one above the tree, then stung another one at the head of the pool. He had taken another 22 inch Brown at the head of his shallow riffle. So far so good. This was really excellent fishing, about as good as one could ask. I could live with three days of this. Little did I know that the river was playing with me. Mercifully, perhaps. The shock then might have been fatal. Dave fished the next pool under the cabin bridge while I watched, stinging two fish that really never showed their size. I circled above and puttered around to two or three small pockets with rootholes, hoping for a repeat of the previous big brown, but raising nothing. About then Dave allowed as he had better be heading back to the airport to pick up Frank. Thunderheads were building ominously over the peaks that rimmed the valley and might alter Frank's flight plans.
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