Two species with my brother
Went fishing with my brother today. He brought his tenkara rod but spent the whole day throwing inline spinners with my Celilo light rod. Unfortunately, he didn’t catch anything. I got two hooked pretty quickly, but only landed one — a very spotty rainbow trout on my handmade inline spinner with my first hand-dressed treble hook. I think it’s my first rainbow in the Mianus river. I wonder when the last time they stocked them was, all I’ve caught so far is tiger.
Then, a few hours of nothing. We saw a group of mallard ducks drifting down the river for the first time, and a very large buck with impressive antlers. Stopped by the bridge on the way back to the car and finally caught the giant tiger trout that has been living under there. I accidentally hooked his eye, which was upsetting, but he should survive. He bit my new Bassmaster X-70. The treble hooks are a disaster. They’re thin, weak, and difficult to unhook. I’ll have to replace them on all of my new megabits lures. But the X-70 has incredible jerking action—I have never seen anything like it. It jerks left or right, then down, as if it’s feeding on insects at the bottom of the river. It casts like a bullet, and the 1-2ft range is perfect for this river. I’m impressed by these BFS style lures, and I’m fascinated by the weight transfer technology, the pathing of the tungsten balls. I also tried the Great Hunting Humpback that I bought, but I busted the lip pretty quickly and didn’t get to see the action. It’s interesting that people use these to target the larger trout in the river, because that seems to be exactly what I caught — one of the largest trout in that river. I’d really like to develop my own trout jerkbait lures, similar to the X-70. I’ll have to continue using them to understand how exactly they work, and how I can improve them for my river.
