First Guadalupe rainbow and more sunnies

The weather has been hot and with water temps hovering in the 70 deg range, the fish are in an uncomfortable range and the stress of being caught can be fatal, especially if kept out of the water for pictures. Yesterday, water temperature sat at 69 deg and I jumped into my kayak and fished the tail of the pool near my home.

It was my first serious attempt at "direct-contact" nymphing with my new rod; a 3 wt Grey's Streamflex XF2 plus designed especially for czech nymphing or dry fly fishing. You can have a 9 1/2 ft dry fly rod or by including a 6" piece hidden in the reel seat convert it to a 10' euro-nymphing rod. I managed 5 rainbows to the net and 9 hooked. I suspect my high loss ratio came from the way I had rigged my split shot and I'll try rigging the flies/split shot differently next time out.

I also took along the Steffen 3/4 wt and again had a blast with the sunfish. I caught a number of bluegills and redbreast sunfish within 50 feet of where I caught the rainbows.