I think I am slowly developing a thing for fishing streamers. When you talk to fly fishermen they always like to brag about the nice trout that sipped his delicate little size 22 trico spinner so subtly he barely noticed it was gone. Not me. Yes I do like to catch fish on a dry fly but there is something down and dirty about tugging a big ugly strip of feathers and rabbit hide through the water and watching a large wake cruise up behind and smash it. It may not be where the glory in fly fishing is but it sure is where the adrenaline is.
Tuesday night my heart skipped a couple beats each time I saw that big swirl all around my size 4 gray Zonker. The fish were not hammering it on a consistent basis but they were even aggressive in their investigation. Often they would come up and take a look at it and then give a big tail slap on the surface of the water that would have made many a beaver proud and turned back to their ambush site. A few fish grabbed at it after their investigation but failed to get the hook in their mouth. But there were two fish who fell for it and they did it with passion. The first, a 23 inch fatty, hammered the streamer right out in the middle of the river and I knew immediately this was a nice fish. So far this is the biggest fish I have caught on the Owyhee River. It pulled hard and made several good runs before finally coming to hand.
After reviving this monster and watching it swim slowly away I turned to grab my rod and noticed I was in a virtual cloud of Caddis. I have to admit I chuckled to myself when I thought about the massive hatch that was happening all around me and yet there was no way in the world I was taking that big Zonker off. If you want to catch the big, mean, ugly Browns, you have to think big, mean, ugly thoughts. Or at least throw a fly that fits that description.
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