This is Why I LOVE Trout Fishing in the Fall

It was a cloudy Saturday afternoon in mid October with temperatures in the fifties and I was going to have to hike an hour or so down river of where I parked the car to find the stretch of river that I was looking for.   I had fished this stretch of river many times before, but this was the first time I have been able to access it since the run off (yep, we had A LOT of snow in the mountains last winter).

 I began my day of fishing as I normally do, by crouching down and rubbing a handful of river gravel in my hands to "wash off" any human or otherwise unnatural scent that might be present.   I stood up and baited my gang hooks with half of a very lively night crawler, checked my split shots (3 seemed like a good number for the water depth and current flow) and casted my line directly parallel to myself and closed the bail of my reel. 

This was going to be a nice drift, I could just feel it.  As my worm drifted with the current, 'ticking' the bottom every few feet, I realized that my premonition was correct.  It was a good drift.  Half of the battle when trout fishing in a river is the quality of the "drift" you are getting, so I knew I was in good shape.  The drift ended without any bites and the process was repeated.  On the third "drift" I felt the familiar pull of a nice trout and set the hook.  Fish on! 

After a 15 minute fight I was admiring a beautiful eighteen inch rainbow trout.   The colors were as beautiful as any I have ever seen and as the healthy fish was released from my hands, I said a silent prayer to the trout Gods and continued my afternoon of fishing.  By dinner time I had caught and released 6 rainbow trout and 1 cutthroat trout ranging in size from sixteen to twenty inches.  There is no doubt that the fall of the year offers some of the best trout fishing that can be found all year long and this day on the river was most certainly proof of that fact.