8-23-03 - We started out the day scouting Trout Run; left ASM and Brennon to their own devices while I scouted around, looking for the best holes!

Now this just looked phenomenal!

Rainbow #1

This put & grow brown came as a total surprise! He swims again.

Rainbow #2

Rainbow #3

Rainbow #4

Rainbow #5...all before 8:00 am and I'm to my limit of stocker rainbows!

Brennon puts out a perfect roll cast to a sneaking sipping trout!

Your first (and for now, last) look at Arctic Snow MONKEY workin' those Iowa trout over. This was the last shot before my camera broke!

Aha! Thanks to ASM and Brennon we have hard prints for the rest of the trip! Brennon worked this pool hard with his Black Nymph of Trout Death and whacked 3 NICE TROUT!

I believe this was Brennon's FOURTH trout of the morning. As you can tell by the light, it's still early!

8-23-03 - 3 Days in Iowa with the Monkey! Day #2 - my camera breaks.

Waters Fished: Trout Run & Coldwater Creek
Fish Caught: 12/33
Outing Date: 8-23-03
Weather: Clear
Air Temp: mid 80's
Water Temp: N/A
Water Level: Trout Run was UP? Coldwater seemed normal
Water Color: clear
Fish Species: Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout
Pattern Fished: Tucker Nymph, Griffith's Gnat, Brennon's Black Nymph, Pheasant Tail Nymph
Pattern Color: gray & gold
Fishing Quality: Challenging but worth it

First, if you've skipped Friday's repot, see my caveots on 8-22!

Alright, so another great day out the rivers was sure to be had. Brennon made it down from his new home in Minnesota just to join us (man, glad he came!). FAT had a nice crew too for the fly fishing school...tonight would be a blast with some new faces like Jim, Tim, Ward, Alex, not to mention Chief & Dutton.

But first things first, time to fish. B, ASM and I headed in different directions from the FAT team and started our day early on Trout Run!

I set B & ASM up on a few holes, ASM started at the hole and went up, while B went down. I walked WAY upstream before dropping in, and basically catching my limit, all before 8:00 am probably.

Well, after seeing action like that I went back and grabbed Brennon and ASM; brought them back to the new holes and they whacked them thoroughly.

Brennon set up on a hole that I had pounded early, yet only managed to land 2 fish out of..one of which did a self C&R at the bank WITH MY FLY en-tow. I think B started with the Tucker, but the fish were not interested...so he whipped out his own concoction which I have dubbed "Brennon's Black Nymph of Trout Death". Within a few casts I was called up to take his first trout picture of the weekend. Damn! For some reason the power won't turn on in my camera. Nuts! Am I really out of batteries already?

Well, we went back down and continued to fish the watercress. ASM pulled out his first in this section and once again I tried the camera. Now you have to understand, the power switch is kind of a toggle...you push it up to turn the camera on or off. Well..this time it didn't STOP when I pushed it up, and it spun all the way around. NO FRIGGIN WAY?! My Kodak DC 5000 has officially taken 12,645 pictures, been dropped at least a dozen times, and gotten wet at least a few...and worked fine...up until now. You'd figure something hard-core would go bad..like a lense or a screen or whatever...but it's the friggin POWER SWITCH!

Despite being totally bummed, we had backup...B & ASM both had disposables with them. Granted, we didn't take a picture of every fish we caught this trip 'cause well...that gets expensive. But down the road I'll get duplicates from ASM and B and will be adding new pictures.

Now let me tell you both ASM and B are very accomplished trout fisherman...by noon we all had our limits (OK, B was one short but I'm sure he could have pulled it off if we gave him another 15 minutes.)

We stopped for lunch in Decora (Casey's Pizza...the best EVER...avoid the sausage though and get the pepperoni!) and then made our way up to Coldwater Creek.

So the plan here was a bit different...we left ASM in the lower section which we'd already seen, fished, and knew to be productive. B & I scouted up the next 5 sections...getting to the point where Coldwater is 2 feet deep and probably only the same as wide. INSANE.

Well, I did manage one fish of note upstream...a stocker brown that obviously had resided in the stream for quite a while, as he had lost his usual steel colored background in favor of the bright yellow and browns of a stream-reared fish. Definitely worth a picture and release! Tagged him on a Tucker (of course!) in a cut in the weeds on a surprisingly deep run (just didn't "LOOK" deep when scouting it). I would have never fished that section had I not noticed a rise!

Nothing else of note really happened...B & ASM tore up Coldwater while I had "troubles" getting additional hits...I want to say that most of the evening I remained fishless...the occasional hit here or there but not much else happening on my line. I did however, totally whack the creek chubs!!!!!

We ended up our evening with the FAT crew and a trout smorgasborg....tons of FAT's Fried Trout and we tried out Frank Nardomarino's "Mango Citris Salsa" stuffing. It received rave reviews even though it took over an HOUR to cook the trout (had to wrap them all as one big wrap...we were low on tin-foil!). The scent was INTOXICATING! Ask Frank for the recipe if he's willing to give it out, or even better have him MAKE IT for you on your next trip to BEC (but I'm sure he'll be using STORE BOUGHT TROUT there ;)

My last little note...it was either this evening or the following morning when the now infamous "MP vs. Chief for the biggest fish" $5 wager was made. Undoubtedly history in the making, starting the biggest smack-talkin' fun-for-all brawl via email to the point that it spilled over onto FAT's Message Board!

  MP