5-14-05 - It's been a while since the small wild Waterloo Brown Trout were around!

Mike works the bailout of the pool.

Meanwhile, Don is making some daring casts, trying to catch a riser.

First rainbow of the day.

Another Rainbow comes to shore.

Don and Mike work opposite sides of the same pod of fish.

As the light fades, Don makes a few more casts.

5-14-05 - Fish Fat Iowa Trout Fly Fishing School, Day 1

Waters Fished: Waterloo Creek
Fish Caught: a few
Outing Date: 5-14-05
Weather: Overcast and WINDY!
Air Temp: 50's
Water Temp: 48F
Water Level: normal
Water Color: clear, visibility several feet
Fish Species: Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout
Pattern Fished: Various Nymphs mostly, BO Dries
Pattern Color: Assorted
Fishing Quality: Semi-Poor

It's a Fly Fishin' School day! If you hadn't already figured out, I do help out at the schools. This time around was my first turn to be the instructor....talk about PRESSURE ;)

Well, after a good morning of staying out of the rain and wind, we hit the streams to put what we'd talked about to good use. In almost no time I landed the first fish of the day, a small wild brown trout. Mike and Don hung out with me for a bit; Don went straight for some of the hardest casting. Tucked up underneath a tree were a few consistent risers and Don wanted nothing more than to get 'em. I can hardly disagree with that kind of enthusiasm...he gave it a great effort but we came up short, quite literally. It was one of the hardest drifts he would face today.

Fat had disappeared downstream with Nick...as the afternoon wore on we swapped and I spent some time working over a huge pod of fish with Nick. We added shot...nothing. We changed up our flies...nothing. We dropped tippet sizes...nothing.

It all changed around right when FAT came back up with Mike and Don. They had a hit or two downstream and Mike had lost one at the bank. I had my head turned and let my line dangle downstream in the current...the nymphs rose in the current and were WHACKED by a trout. YEE HA!

So I put it back out...casted and at the end of the drift, gave my flies a quick twitch to get them shooting upwards in the water column! WHACKED again, and Don helped me land another Rainbow trout in about as many casts. Finally, we had broken the secret for the day...the fish were feeding on swimming nymphs.

Fat went off to prepare dinner while I took the three fly anglers upstream to another access on the Waterloo. Don went straight for a prime spot and camped it...he definitely picked up on the "reading water" and "fish hotels" part of the discussion. Nick had literally disappeared...I found him downstream on a group of trout. We sat for a bit and hooked a couple...Mike made his way down and we all gave them a try.

Nick was content to work on his cast and give the pod a good working over...I took Mike a bit further downstream to one of my honey holes. I thought for sure we'd see some more good action here...to date it has always produced at least ONE hit.

Well, in a nutshell, the winds were pretty bad all day...even I was having difficulty with my casts. While I still convinced we could have landed a fish or two with more time put into the hole, Mike and I both decided that casting straight into a 20 MPH wind with our 4 wts. wasn't cutting the mustard. So we headed back up to see how our fellow angling companions were doing.

Don had great news, as soon as the sun had come out he had experienced 4 or 5 hits and landed one. I'm sorry I wasn't there to photograph it! Nick was doing all right too...we all put in a few more minutes at the initial pool before wrapping it up and heading home for dinner - mashed potatoes, turkey mignon wrapped in bacon, northern pike, cherry cobbler, and ice cream with fresh raspberries were all waiting for us when we got there!

  MP