After a fabulous and successful “Fishing for the Fight” event, the opportunity to stay an extra day and fish the Nunya River, one of my favorites for over 30 years, came about. I took the opportunity. Furthermore, what truly made the day spectacular was that I floated it with a couple of my oldest and longest time friends, Scott Sanchez and Tom Bie.
You’ve probably heard both their names a time or two. If you read magazines, Scott often has articles about fly tying. He’s one of the most creative individuals you’ll see at a fly tying vise and his books have taught thousands. And quite frankly, Scott is one of the finest and nicest guys you could ever hang out with. We’ve been friends since May of 1987.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor and publisher of the Drake Magazine. If you haven’t experienced a copy by now you’re way overdue. The first Drake hit the stands in 1998 and it’s turned into the favorite read for many. Me included. Tom and I have been friends since the early 90’s – at least.
It was a casual day for us. First off, all three of us were exhausted. Big events wear you down in a good way. Let’s just say there’s not a ton of sleeping that goes on during a three-day fundraiser. We’re also pretty chill these days. Yes of course, we wanted to land a few fish, but the three of us fishing together and spending time catching up in a beautiful place took priority. We hit the water about 10 am.
It was a stunner of a day. We had plenty of blue sky and sunshine with a scattering of white puffy clouds. It was extremely hot and the smell of sagebrush fragranced the air thanks to the two previous days thunderstorms and rain. The one thing we could have done with less of was the wind. An hour after we hit the water the gales and gusts were tortuous. Tom kindly rowed through much of it for his daily workout.
Fishing was good. Really, all I wanted was to catch one nice brown trout. A 16 incher would do. I rowed the first session when the fish were on the dry flies such as yellow sallies and tiny PMD mayflies. The guys caught a few. I hit the fishing as the wind started so I went with my usual killer two fly streamer rig. I met my brown trout goal fast and landed a few extras as well. Then headed back to the oars.
The best fishing came towards the end of our day. Honestly, we’d only caught a few really good fish in the first few miles of our float. I remember this river being fickle. All brown trout fisheries are at times. So we adjusted our tactics. Instead of hitting the prime looking banks, we searched out small deep troughs and inside turns. And anywhere grass blades touched the water. The adjustment paid off. Tom and Scott landed about ten fantastic browns in the last hour.
I should mention there were a few rainbows and one cutthroat mixed in. I took a rainbow on a PMD dry fly and Scott caught this chunky bow on a streamer. On the cast before catching this one, Scott had a double on but he lost the larger fish on his point fly just as it got to the boat.
We pulled the boat around 4 pm. It was a planned short day but it was good and what an enjoyable float it was. Two long time buddies on a body of water that I cherished when I lived in the Yellowstone region. And the fishing was pretty darn good.
That’s about it. I fly home tomorrow. Although a quick visit to my old stomping grounds, I accomplished a ton. Obviously the highlight was working for the FFF. The amount of money raised for families and for children in need was record breaking and I and the rest that volunteered for the FFF are ecstatic. But to be able to tack on a phenomenal fishing day before the event and another today before going home with old friends, unreal. Sometimes I feel like luckiest angler in the world.