Fishin' Reports

I ran into Saun Seamon in Leavenworth, who had recently retired and has a strong interest in fly fishing. I told him about my last trip on the upper Icicle and he was eager to go. We met on Wednesday afternoon and drove all the way up the Icicle Valley to a place where I like to fish, which is past the Trout Creek turnoff. We both have light weight fly rods so catching even the 6- to 8-inch fish is fun. I was using a Stimulator that had worked great on my last visit to this stretch of the Icicle and he tied on an Elk Hair Caddis. He methodically worked his way down the stream and I would get way ahead of him, casting and moving at a much faster pace. When I would come back up to check on him, he was happily catching and releasing small rainbow. It was getting late enough to call it quits when I walked back up to meet him, and just then he hooked a rainbow that was bigger than anything we had caught that afternoon. I had a tape measure in my bag, and we checked this fish before releasing it. It was 11 inches long, which is a real whopper by Icicle Creek standards, and a great way to finish our day.