I firmly believe the fish grow accustomed to the increased traffic on the water’s surface this time of year. I’ve hooked heavy fish drifting nymphs ten feet just upstream of a group of tubers multiple times. I recently heard a story about someone dropping a camera behind their raft and having multiple large browns come “kiss” the lens. I buy it.
Once hooked, this 21″ cutt-bow below took it nice and easy in the off-color water…until she spotted me and took off downstream with a vengeance. While running her, some inflatable recreation types entered the run and actually passed over the top of the fish before she went to the net. Slightly more stressful than I like. Either way, the San Juan worm wasn’t going anywhere. Photo credit to my Mom visiting from OKC, who insists I was born 6 weeks early because she went on a fishing boat on Pyramid Lake.
I lost a huge gigantic monster brown recently, and after resting the run a few weeks I decided to go renegotiate. I insist he was still there, but I connected instead with some nice fish pictured below including a nice 20″+ bow that ran me for the longest fight ever…this fish did not want to come in.