The next day, I got to the water around 7, suited up, and started hiking. Lucky for me, the freak cold front hadn't passed yet so...it was a chilly morning. There was so much good water to fish. Too bad the fish were in the deeper pools, but it's promising for future trips! I was equipped with my TUSA 12' Iwana and my Fountainhead 11' Stone Fly 330 rods. Turns out that the Iwana was too long and difficult to fish. The guys in the fly shop insisted on heavy nymphs, which is an issue for me. First, I'm what some people would call a "novice" when it comes to nymphing. Dry flies are easy and I learned to fly fish with weighted streamers, so I was out of my league. Second, tenkara rods are made with soft tip sections which makes harder to cast weighted flies and also makes it harder to get a good hook set with these nymphs. After hiking a lot and fishing some, I came to a hole that seemed to be 20' deep. I decided to try out an olive BH wooly bugger to get as far down as I could. I got a nice drift a few times to no avail, then my line suddenly stopped. Fish on! From the feel, I could tell it was a little guy, but size doesn't much matter to me. It was a beautiful rainbow! Trying the same drift again, the very next cast my line abruptly shot strait. From the hook set I could tell this one was big, but the set wasn't good enough and the fish threw the hook. Rats! After more failed attempts, frozen hands and feet, and a grumbling belly, I called it a day and drove the remaining 6 hours back to campus.
All in all, not a bad day. I caught a fish, but more importantly I'm slowly picking up on nymphing. It's a challenge without an indicator, but I like to get a real feel for the fish. Can't wait to go back when the trout are taking dries!