Today was an auspicious day; a prophesy came true and I added another species to my list of fly caught Manitoba fish. First the prophesy. I suggested to a fly fishing forum member he get the largest rod he would be comfortable with for fishing the Red. Advanced years coupled with a wonky shoulder has me using an 8wt as my largest rod now and I suggested in my post that this 8 wt rod would likely prove to be inadequte to the task one day on the Red. Turned out to be true on the same day. I hooked into a large fish, you know the kind that don't really move when you first set the hook. This one just sat around for what seemed like a full minute before heading into the current and downstream. And during that minute I had a full bend in my rod. Anyway, I scampered after him and finally found myself out of sight of my base where all my gear lay, including cell phone, camera and flies. At this point the fish rose and rolled at the surface and I got a pretty good look at his tail. It was a large channel cat...and it wasn't ready to come in. My dilema...play the fish out and quit worrying about my camera or break him off. I really like my new camera and the 10lb. leader parted quickly after I started horsing the fish towards me. I think if someone else had been with me I might have netted that kitty but who knows, it still seemed almost as fresh as when it started.
The new specie is a Bigmouth Buffalo, a member of the sucker family. The one I caught was 22 1/2 inches long and put up a respectable fight before agreeing to pose for a few pictures. The walleye was 21" and rounded out another slow but nice fishing day. Today the only fly that caught anything was the dark thing pictured below although I put in quite a bit of time trying whites and chartreuse but got nothing on either.
