some more interesting water, obviously some of the best on the preserve, if the collection of cars parked at the trail head is any testament. The next hour and a half is sheer torture. As the hatch tailed off, the larger fish could be found here and there rising regularly. They were, however, functionally inaccessible. I considered it a triumph if I got even one cast over the fish without putting them down. The most infuriating of them never did quit rising, just shifted their riseforms from slashes to simple sucks, never of my fly. They simply ignored me. Getting a drag free float for more than a foot in this heavily weeded water is almost impossible, and casting accuracy with a long, 7X leader,a #3 rod, and a gusty wind is impossible. I'm not alone. One man below me cast over the same fish for 90 minutes without result. Eventually I quit with fish still rising to god-knows-what Score, 2 good fish to the fly, one minor stick. With my confidence shattered, I drive back to Bellevue and decide to fish the Big Wood River right in town, exactly 2 blocks from the motel. The river is small and low, obviously a time for stupid dinks, maybe up to 10 inches, so I leave on the light leader. I catch a couple of small ones right off, nice native rainbows, when I get to some really interesting water. Too bad there aren't any big fish here, I think to myself. Wham! I set on the take and the size of the silver flash deep in the pool is mind boggling, bigger than anything I had even come close to hooking in the Creek. Too big for the pool, the fish charges around out of control among the rocks until he breaks me. Never got a good look at him, but I guess 19 inches. Hmmmmm! I tie on a new leader, 5 lb. test this time, and continue up the hole. There is a circling foam patch covering deep water near the head. Might be a fish around the edge, I think. I lose my fly in the foam on the first cast, but a fish finds it, leaving a hole two feet across in a slashing rise. I miss it completely. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! I circle back to fish a small rock garden on a side channel and take four fish from 13 to 17 inches in a pool the size of a small bathtub. From then on I have it nailed. Here it is, 3:00 PM in brilliant sunshine literally within city limits and a block from my room, and I begin hanging nice, good, and even great fish from every wrinkle deep enough to cover them. I completely wear out one #12 Adams. I even crush down the barbs, which I never do. Finally end up fishing with a cigar in one hand, an open can of pop propped in the breast pocket of my waders. Casual. I never see another fisherman. In all it's idyllic splendor, the only two problems are that I really could have fished more comfortably wet, rather than in 5 mm neoprenes, since the water was never deeper than my knees, and that the BigWood tends to split constantly into multiple channels, dividing up too little water to start with. One had to hike a block or so past skinny runs to the next fishable hole. Biggest fish
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