Big and Fresh

Thursday July 3rd - Evening.
Wandered down to the Big Lake for a look-see.
A few fish were rising but none seemed all that interested.
The clear lake water was hovering in the high 30's and as I waded, the tannin stained water from the river would surge and flow around my waders.  Though the river temp was probably not much more than the mid 60's the difference in temps made it feel like it was close to boiling.  I stayed until dark and then packed it in.

Friday July 4th - 4:00 AM
The alarm clock this early normally requires a few whacks at the snooze button, but with a morning on the lake calling, I jumped out of bed, made a cup of coffee, slipped on my waders and was on the road in 30 minutes.

I had been in the water swinging my chartreuse and white deceiver for ten minutes when TP showed up clutching a 7 weight switch rod and a stainless steel coffee cup.  He started at the head of the outflow and within minutes he scooped me by hooking a walleye.  It hurt even more that he was swinging a chartreuse and white streamer about the same size as the one I was fishing.  We spent the morning pitching flies and filling our stripping buckets with retrieved line.  We waded out to the small rock island and continued to fish as we discussed art and logos and fishing and life.
I didn't notice until I was back at the truck that we hadn't touched another fish.

Saturday July 5th - 5:00 AM
I had a wilderness 10k  race yesterday.  It kicked my ass and the thought of getting up at 4:00 in the morning wasn't in the cards.  So I got up at 5:00.  I repeated the ritual of coffee and gearing up and headed back out to the lake shore.  A few smallish fish were rising though it was tough to see what they were.  Not that it mattered...if they were suckers eating on top I would have gladly fished over them.
About 45 minutes in I got a bump but repeated swings through resulted in no further interest.  I switched sides of the current and changed to a muddler.  A 14" juvenile steelhead liked my offering and smashed it hard on the swing and then went airborne 6 times...That was pretty cool.  After I released it, I waded out to the rock and kept pitching and stripping.  Increased surface activity sent me scrambling for my single hander pre-loaded with a long tippet of 4x and a parachute hare's ear.  The rises were small and sporadic in close, but there was a pod of larger fish sharking bait 150 yards out that I kept my eyes on.  I had one small fish take the dry but the hook never found target.  Shortly after that, a 10" coho shot out of the water at a bug in flight and I felt pretty confident that all of the fish i was seeing were salmon.  I kept willing the larger fish in closer so I could get a few shots at them....but they never came.

Saturday July 5th - 5:30 PM
The plan was to meet TP back on the water for an evening fish.  But the weather decided against our plan.  4+ inches of rain fell in an hour.  The winds hit close to 80 mph.  Everything blew out.