A big surprise...

The La Salle River downstream of the dam is warm, speckled with duckweed, and the rocks are covered with algae. To boot, continued hot weather with little rain has water levels very low. Most decent sized fish have left or have been caught but for the diehard fisherman there is still action to be had. Small fish are abundant and today I was targeting small rock bass and crappies.

I was high sticking a current break between a riffle and a back eddie where I had caught my biggest crappie of the day yesterday.  On my second drift a big maw suddenly appeared and engulfed my #14 hair's ear nymph. the hookup was solid and 15 minutes later I landed a 32 inch channel cat. After posing for his mug shot he seemed pretty weary but after some ichthyological CPR gave a solid flip of the tail and disappeared back into the pool. Who would have guessed...a pretty big channel cat nymphing for size 14 bugs on a current break. Certainly a first for me and my biggest cat on my 4 wt rod.