5/19 South Branch -- High Bridge area, etc

[Jigman13]

Fished 5/19 from 6:30 AM till about 3 PM on a good stretch of the South Branch and another close by honey hole. Easily one of the best days I've ever had, numbers-wise, trout fishing. Started by throwing a small floating Rapala in shiner pattern. 2nd cast, hooked up--fat, cookie-cutter brown. Hooked up again a few casts later--another brown about the same size. These fish were aggressive and putting on a show--good fun on 4 lb test. A few more missed strikes and I switched over to a 1/16 brown rooster tail with a gold blade. Game on. Hooked a small brookie and another brown--smaller variety--easily released to fight another day. Gotta love barbless roosters. Wising up to my antics, the bite slowed. I moved down stream and started drifting butter worms in moving water and was hooking up almost non-stop--most released. Stopped under a bridge and loaded up on fat browns and a really nice brookie. Kept a few that were hooked deep. Nothing larger than 2 lbs but aggressive hits all day, even as the sun was high in the sky. Saw a few torpedo browns of quality size shooting around but they wouldnt take anything I threw at them. Found a 5 lb'er dead in some faster moving water--unfortunate.

Sat on a rock in the river and enjoyed the sun for a bit--and smoke... Time to move on.

Hit a lil' honey hole not too far from where I was fishing and didnt expect much with the lack of water we've been dealing with. Still, I gave it a go. Wound up drifting butters, throwing the Rapala and Rooster again into a variety of holes and fast moving water and absolutely KILLED it. All rainbows--angry, hungry rainbows. Kept a few meatier ones and let the others go. Also pulled out some small wild browns with some epic colorations on them--VERY cool to see.

Had my limit, played a little catch-and-release, then adios... Helluva day... Beautiful weather, landed close to 20 fish and was unbuttoned on about half as many. Didnt snap any shots as I left my phone in the car. I should do that more often... : )