As some may know, I recently headed out to California. Through another forum, I was able to meet up with a local guy named Curtis who was willing to show me this awesome creek in the middle of the mountains.

Once we to our destination, we saw some rangers and after a short conversation with them, we got geared up and started the hike down to the creek. As we were crawling over rocks and down the side of a mountain, this little creek suddenly appeared. One of our first views was a deep pool with incredibly clear water and full of natural rainbow trout that were clearly sipping bugs of the surface.

At the suggestion of Curtis, I tied on a small number 16 stimmie and started casting. I was casting Curtis' Sage TXL 1wt which was completely new to me, so it took me a few minutes to get used to it and untangle my line from the bush behind me - twice. Once I got that out of the way, I caught my first wild rainbow on the fly!! This one fish made everything worth it. It wasn't big and the fight was only fun because I was using a 1wt, but it was still awesome. This was the fishing that I always wished I could do. Away from people or any sign of them. For me to accomplish this took a four hour flight plus an hour and a half drive so to catch this fish made it all worth it.



More details, pictures, etc...can be found on the blog
http://www.brookfieldangler.com/2012/05 ... ntain.html