I want to give a big thank you to Harold for stocking those strong rainbows in the Housy! What the heck were they feeding them at the hatchery, steroids? Thank god they don't test fish for performance enhancing drugs!

What a great day of fishing Flash and I had on Sunday, not a real lot of fish, but we did get a bunch of bows that just would not quit. You were absolutely right, Alain, gotta have 4x on (and two still broke me off). Those fish are like mini-steelhead! Lots of jumps and some long runs. I landed two that were eighteen inches and lost three that were bigger. One that I lost had to be well over twenty inches. I got a lot of good looks at him, I must have got him close enough so that the very tip of my fly line was at the tip of my rod 5 or 6 times, but I could not get him close enough to net. Every time I got him that close he would take off. I finally started to really pressure him, not wanting to overplay him, (not that I was babying him before, I had 4x on and he was on a size 8 stonefly) and the hook popped out. Another I lost jumped several times, and he too was at least 20 inches. The third I never saw, but it was heavy as hell and strong as hell, certainly bigger than 18"). None of the bows we caught was under 15 inches.

I also want to say hi to the fella Flash and I met where we parked in the afternoon, we later fished across the river from him, where we both were nailing some of those great bows. Very nice guy who frequents TPO (unfortunately I did not get his name). Hope to see you up there again!

Here is a picture of one of the fatter bows, which was actually one of the smaller ones (at least lengthwise)!;



Steve