The "Dear God It's Hot" Trip Report

Breathable waders stop breathing when the air temperature reaches 80 degrees. I know this because Tyler knows this.

Tyler is the name I've given - in honor of Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Fight Club - to my alter ego. He's the embodiment of my peccadilloes, those aspects of myself that don't quite live up to what is normally a godlike self image. Tyler is a near 300 pound man who is so out-of-shape that he sweats if he so much as thinks of walking from the living room to the kitchen for another beer. I try telling him he needs to drop a few pounds, and maybe eat a carrot or something. He doesn't listen. Tyler stopped smoking to avoid cancer, but he's likely to die of heart disease instead.

Being a morbidly obese bug chucker is both a blessing and a curse. Winter steelheading is great fun. The chill of the snow and the bite of the wind cannot penetrate the three or four inches of gelatinous goo that cover and protect my otherwise Zeusian physique. The summer months, however, can be downright brutal. Ninety degrees is warm no matter who you are. When one's birthday suit is made out of triple layer fleece interwoven with 3M Thinsulate ... well ... you get the picture, and the portrait before you is a sweaty one indeed.

So with the air temperature expected to rise into the high eighties or low nineties, I spent one day this Memorial weekend chasing trout up and down two of my favorite rivers, chasing trout and sweating with aplomb. What follows is a short pictorial report.

A few of my readers will recognize the location of this sign, but all of my readers will understand just how refreshing is such a public showing of public access.

Nymphs were the order of the day and Ben was the first to hook up.

My first fish just happened to be the best I've taken on a stonefly nymph.

I expected more rainbows than graced us with their presence, and I'm left wondering if last year's drought had an effect on the population.

On the largest of the bows, the colors were stunning.

The day's bonus was my first carp of the year. Initially, I thought this five or six pound fish was a big brown trout. I was not disappointed when I discovered its true identity.