First Brown of 2017

When the fishing GODS hand you a 73 degree day on a Thursday in late February, you don't sit around at work dreaming of fishing. YOU GO FISHING! And that's exactly what I did yesterday. I left work a couple hours early, mumbling some goofy excuse around the would free me from my obligations for the afternoon and I headed to the river. Oh what a gorgeous day for the river too. Sunny, slight breeze, birds chirping. I encountered several pairs of drake and hen mallards along my river walk. Started things off with a Red Tag Woolly Worm. Something I haven't used on the river yet but I have used it for pan fish and its been a slammer. But after a few drifts through some usually productive pools and nothing hitting, I switched it up to the old standby. I started tying my SSS (Sand Sage Special) flies with a small gold cone on them to get a little faster sink rate and to achieve that nice head over tail turn you get with a wounded bait fish. They really seem to do the trick. After I picked off a few smaller chubs in a shallow run, I flipped the fly downstream from my position. Let it sink a second and then gave it a twitch. The fly popped upward slightly and a big silver flash followed right behind it. A nice 13 inch Republican brown came to hand after a quick fight. Very pretty fish. She had a nice silver color to her rather than that butter color that some of  the others have had. Anyway after a quick picture I wished her farewell and slipped her back into the cool clear waters of the mighty Republican creek.