North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine March 2018 | Página 22

in on those creatures we were in trouble. Fortunately,
some of the trout preferred chironomids and we
hooked a fish here or there over the next couple
hours. Later, Chan motored the boat around until
he found what he wanted to see on the sonar—a
pack of large fish in a concentrated area, just off
bottom in 23 feet of water. He carefully positioned
the boat, dropped bow and stern anchors, and said,
“They’re right beneath us.”
I cast my outfit as far as I could (which
basically meant I was fishing under the boat) and
let the cork bob in the chop. Chan did the same
thing, with an identical cork, tippet and fly. Not long
after, I was hooked up to a very nice fish, maybe
a five-pounder. At Corbett the rainbows were
acrobats; here they acted like vampires, avoid-ing
the light and boring deep anytime they got near the
surface. I was fishing a fast-action five-weight rod
and wish-ing I were throwing a seven-weight. My
right wrist and forearm burned. So how long did I
fight this fish? Four minutes? Five minutes? That’s
a long time to fight a trout, but I think that guess
is accurate—these rainbows were as strong as
any I’ve fought, bending the rod to what I thought
would be the breakage point and repeatedly diving
for bottom just when I thought they might roll over
on their sides and slide into the net.
While fighting that fish