First Guadalupe rainbow on the 2 wt...

At Last!! This evening, as the sun slipped behind the horizon and temps held at a balmy 43 F, my 2 wt finally hooked up with a nice little rainbow. The "bait" was a #16 pheasant tail soft hackle and the rainbow hammered it like it was her first meal of the day. The clicker drag was set fairly softly and the rainbow made a number of nice runs.

A last cast as I was heading in to some welcome warmth resulted in another little redbreast sunfish. Another slow afternoon with only 2 rainbows and 1 sunfish to net but a wonderful day nevertheless.

Another Guadalupe species for me...

Fished ALL day today...fishing was so-so, weather was great. Guess you can't win them all. Ended up with 4 rainbows and a whole bunch of sunfish.  The bows were all decent...about 16" to 18". Two were caught swinging a streamer in heavy riffles and two came to a #20 miracle midge under an indicator.

Evening found me fishing the shallows for sunfish or whatever might hit a fly with my 2 wt. and I wasn't disappointed. Found a new Guadalupe species for me...a little bluegill.

The new 2 wt gets a 3 incher...

I'm fishing my new 2 wt for 1/2 hour or so in the evening after an afternoon of trout fishing using larger rods. However, I seem to stuck in the category of UL to the extreme...the fish caught are getting smaller. :)

My latest victim was caught on a #16 pheasant tail and I hope (fingers crossed) that it's either a Spotted or Guadalupe bass. Any opinions out there?

The jury is now in and consensus has it the fish is a spotted bass.

Lost a nice one....again

But it was a 3 species day on the Guadalupe.

Why is it that we always lose the nice fish? This wasn't a monster but likely the largest I've caught this trip. It was hooked on my 4 wt. and I was getting concerned about the health of the fish after fighting it for 10 minutes or so. I started horsing it in but it kept running whenever it saw the net. Eventually the line parted. Not a big deal but I'd like to have gotten a picture.

But I did get a picture of this monster...a spottail shiner ( I think) that fell to a #20 brassie. This fish was caught on a drift the very next cast and the very same current break holding the broken off  rainbow. And they are listed as prey of the rainbow trout. Go figure!

It was almost dark when I got home but the new 2 wt, a Redington CT with a 2/3 Drift reel, called from rod storage. I quickly dropped off the 4 and 5 wt and picked up my latest pride and joy. I paddled to a rapid 100 yards from home and dropped a #16 pheasant tail into some surface activity at the tail of the pool. Bang...I was into a fish; albeit a tiny one. Specie number 3 for the day...a bluegill (I think). I have since been corrected and told this is actually a redbreast sunfish.

BTW, that Redington casts like a dream...I easily put out about 60 feet of line with accuracy; using my fairly loose standards of course.

Guagalupe Rainbows are still amorous...

Fished the rapids near my rental his afternoon and hooked one rainbow at one and two at the other, near the Ponderosa bridge. First one fell to a plastic egg while the other two enjoyed snacking on a #20 zebra midge. Unfortunately "hooked" does not necessarily translate to "caught" and today was about par for the course. One LDR, a nice fish that broke off after 2 or 3 minutes and the little lady that posed for the above picture.

While at times the fish spread out and seemed to be feeding at other moments they paired up and went through some false spawning gestures. I tried a stomach pump on the above fish but nothing came out...the fish hadn't been feeding.