The cold, the rainbow, and the ugly...

It had been quite some time since I had wet a line in search of rainbows. The obvious excuses come to mind like work and grad school but my job teaching affords me the opportunity to fish on the weekends. I had been very busy working on the house and being a good husband. Any way I found a chance to sneak down to the current river which I had been putting off because it would turn out to be a solo trip. I had dabbled with the idea of running out and doing some trout fishing but I did not want to go that far by myself. The current river access point Vat Tan (mis-pronounced to not give away vital info) is around two hours and forty five minutes away from my house. That is haul by any means and it is a pretty secluded location which has made me leary about venturing down there by my self.

I finally found an opportunity and the courage to brave below freezing temps and very windy conditions to fish Vat Tan. My buddy Will had been making a few trips down there by himself and catching some nice rainbows and a couple of elusive browns on streamers. I ran to bass pro and bought a few tying supplies and set my self to the task of tying a slump buster like pattern. I tied my flies on a Tuesday night and planned to fish Wednesday morning. The Saturday before i had made my first solo trip down there and caught a few nice rainbows. I will add a post for this trip but I am too excited about this post and I loaded the pictures for this post so here is the Wednesday trip. I tied to leechy looking slump buster patterns the night before and headed down to montauk.

I arrived earlier than my previous solo trip at around eight o'clock and wadered up to fish the freezing river. I fished my heart out for around an hour and a half until I finally walked back to the entrance and began to fish the river from the beginning. I was very cold and frustrated at this point so i tied on my freshly tied slump buster with added flash(why not will you know I love flash) and I proceeded to swing it through and past the riffles to little drop pools. Right passed the first water fall i hooked up to an very nice rainbow who fought rather valiently despite the cold temperature. I let out a couple of victory oh yeahs because i was so excited to feel the weight of a rainbow trout.

After I had broken the seal I ran into a hot streak and caught four more on my leechy hand tied slump buster. I made my way back to the car to eat some lunch and made a few casts right before the car in the deep plunge pool after the first water fall. i hooked up to a smaller trout than I had been catching but when I brought it in close i found that something was trailing behind the fish. When I finally landed the rainbow I had discovered a number 6 rubber legs fly with line coming from the anus of the trout. At this point i was truly boggled and decided that the trout had eaten the rubber leg fly then excreted it to swallow the nymph which was ran on a six inch trailer. I cut the line at the fishes anus and proceeded to revive him before letting the fish swim free.

I took this as a sign to grab a bite at my car and warm up a little. After i ate I decided to try my luck once again and fished my way towards a downed tree which was produced some rather nice rainbows earlier. i casted up river in front of a small indention in the stream and swung my fly into a slower pocket when a had hooked another rainbow but another trout went for my fly at the same time and cut the line right in front of the other hooked fish. Wished I would have tied a dropper rig at that point. I switched to a dry fly which is my attempt at a renegade and I pin point casted it onto a rising trout. after the battle a went after another riser and landed the largest trout of the day. i tied on my slump buster and caught a couple more to end the day. I decided to leave around 2 which was fine by me because i was cold and the urge to land some pretty amazing trout had been sated. In all it was the best day I have had so far on the current and I was glad I braved the challenging winds and freezing temperatures. i believe the word bum will come to a few peoples mind but to me any weather or condition is a good time to catch trout. man i really love catching trout on three weight rods.