EFL river is the lowest time of the year now and water temperature is higher than 60 degree . It’s not easy to catch fishes in this condition. But fly fishing is quite a effective method to catch trouts. I started fishing around 10 o’clock morning today. I could not go earlier but I’m OK. I like harder condition for fishing sometimes. My challenging spirit is firing up! I stood in front of the river and look around. I didn’t see any hatch of bags in the middle of the day. I tied my streamer to my tippet. It’s 3X tippet. I thought it’s too heavy line in this low and clear water condition. But I had some sense, yes believed in catching a big fish!

I kept casting in the shallow and fast current a lot. My #10 red octopus hook is a little bit bigger for small fishes. I felt some small signal of bite through the line. I thought another baby fish is checking.

Bum! I got this fish weight through line. I hooked it with pulling my line quickly. But this fish didn’t start running and just stayed at the spot of the bite at the moment. What’s this fish? Then this fish started fighting. But it started to sinking like a submarine. This fish try to find deeper spot and pull and sinking. I was glad that I tied 3x tippet. It’s not easy to cut it off. I reeled up till looking at this fish body. But still this fish tried to keep sinking. Obviously this fish was not a rainbow trout. Rainbow are usually running and fighting and jumping… I can see many actions. This is completely a different fighting style.

After we did tag war for a while, I could see his body. It’s a Sea Run Cutthroat trout! It’s like a bonus for catching this beauty in this river. This size is about 14 inch. My most favorite fish in this river!!
Yes, Steelhead is always my target. But this fish is really beautiful. I think this fish is the Queen of the river instead of Steelhead King. Especially this fish came back from ocean and changed body color and his mouth changed to a beak shape like a bird. I released him with a gentle care. I will go back to fishing again next week. I want to see another one!