Rowing Practice

As you know if you have been reading here, the river is blown out.  That much I think has been made abundantly clear.  But when life hands you lemons, go make lemonade I guess.  So having not touched a fly rod in a couple weeks we decided it was time to check the river out from the inside, and dusted off the Alumaweld and launched her into the great wide current.  We floated a little over 8 miles of the river and threw streamers at the banks, and half exposed willows the entire way.  We received nothing to show for our efforts other than a little exercise.  Not a single follow.  Here are just a few observations and tidbits from the day.

• First, it took about three hours to float the approximate 8 miles.  We swung around a couple eddies but really we didn't dilly dally at all.  
• There are no riffles on the river.  the river is deep, deep, deep.  Part of the reason I don't think we caught anything.  These fish have a lot of water and with the curve ball they have been thrown I wouldn't be surprised if they have found a rock deep in the river and tied themselves to it for the time being. 
• It was a nice day for a float.  A bit windy for throwing streamers, but it was a nice little outing none the less.  
• Didn't spot any bugs in any significant numbers. 
• Saw two fish rise in the three hours on the river.  One soon after we put in in a big eddy, and one towards the end of the float, again, in a big eddy.  Both were single rises with no follow up.  We watched the area for quite a while after each one.  They never reappeared.  
• I had anticipated a tougher float, but it was fairly simple to navigate the river.  Most of the rapids have been smoothed out, and the river is high enough most rocks are safely under water.  Only a couple spots required a little thought about how to attack them and there was plenty of room to maneuver around any potential hazards.  

Here are a couple photos of the day:

After the float we checked out the glory hole and the dam so here are a few of those shots as well:

 

 

(Click for larger image)