Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Saturday September 14, 2019

Fished after Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. 11:30 – 3:00
23 to the net many more strikes and a few more hooked and got off
Many in the 10 to 12 inch range and one 16 inch brown.

This trout is 16 inches long.
It is hard to tell the length of the fish because I am taking the picture with the webbing of the net hanging down from the net frame. The black mark on the frame in the top left side of the picture is 12 inches from the handle and the net frame is 16 inches from the inside of the net frame at the handle to the outside of the net frame at the length of the net.


A 16 inch brown on a three weight rod takes a while to get to the net. On the third cast after the brown I caught a 10 inch rainbow, as I was reaching into the net to unhook this fish the knot on the hook gave out and came untied. I almost lost that big brown.

I have sure learned a lot about setting the hook while fly fishing.  With this Euro Nymphing/Tight Line Nymphing you have a length colored line (sighter line) as part of the leader so you can better see your line. The sighter line is tied in the leader with blood knots with inch and a half to two inch tails.  This makes it a little easier to see the colored line You cast up stream and let the nymph drift with the river flow.  When the line makes any movement you wouldn’t expect to be part of the normal river flow you give a short hook set. The unexpected movement may have been a stick in the water or bumping the bottom of the river, OR it is amazing how many times it is a fish.  On one drift the sighter line moved a couple of inches toward the middle of the river rather then flowing to the right down river, a quick rise of the rod tip about a foot of rise and the line instantly starts running off the reel out across the river, 16 inch brown on a three weight rod.