Got out to the Okanogan River today. Was flinging a woolly bugger with a little flash to it thinking it'd catch anything in there. Was mainly thinking I'd get into smallmouth, which was the case, but thought I might, very slim chance, get a hookup with a salmon. Course a 5wt rod and 4lb tippet probably would just get me broken off...

Fished a few hours in the afternoon and had a blast. It was my first time out on the river with my fly rod, crazy I know. Wind was coming into my casting arm so I got a few wrap arounds before I switched to the other side of my body. Ended up getting a few small ones early on, lost a couple more, caught a healthy 11" that had to be close to a pound. Then a few more smaller ones, a few more lost. Later on I felt a bump bump so I pulled my rod tip up and bye bye woolly bugger, was probably a 30lb chinook, or a rock... Pretty sure it was a fish but I think my tippet must have frayed a bit with the other fish and weed snags and what nots. Then I go up river to a bit of structure, some logs and trees... Toss towards them into the swifter current, let it swing, BAM... Something that felt pretty solid hit it and I immediately think SALMON OH CRAP... With thoughts of having to chase this thing a mile down river I wet my hands and try to be steady with my finger setting the drag... It's swimming with the current, don't know what it is yet... Then I see the bronze... A few minutes later I get it into me and it's a great healthy smallmouth, I didn't have a scale but I'd guess 1.5+, I assure you it was more football shaped then the photo, bad camera angle and all :) Then I ended the day with another little guy 6". Was a blast taking the fly rod out there, all the snags of floating weeds and wind knots were fine for all the fun I had out there.

The bass were not shy at all, I'd get these little guys up to 8" following the fly all the way within 5' of me. One scared the crap out of me... Here I am, in untieingknotland... damn wind... and I've got the rod under my arm, the fly in the water infront of me, and I'm working on the knot when SNAP, little bastard came up and hammered the tail of my fly right infront of me, splash splash splash, and I was not ready for it, I think I jumped a little.

Can't wait to get out there again and play around, what a blast the fly rod was. I'm definitely going to get some stronger leader/tippet that'll be a bit more abrasion resistant, I felt this smallmouth in the picture could have snapped my line if I wasn't so careful with it.

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