Happy fish make happy anglers

I got out early yesterday morning and hit the river at sunrise. I fished hard all morning before going to class to take a test. I heard from the guys at the fly shop that fish have pushed up into the upper reaches of the river and are now well distributed. I had been fishing lower down all fall because the fish hadn’t made their way up to the upper part of the river I prefer to fish. I like the upper section of the river mainly because it is more wooded. The lower river runs right through town which makes for more anglers and poor scenery. I like the wooded areas on the upper river and prefer to have the river to myself, if possible. The area I fish on the upper stretch is also 20 minutes closer to home than the areas I fish on the lower river; that’s nice too. The water was a little low with excellent visibility up to 30” I would guess. Still there was more water and more color than there was the last time I fished. The fish were happier and were holding in places you’d expect to find fish. The air temperature started off in the low 40s and reached the mid 50s by the time I hiked out. Shortly after getting there, I caught a decent sized buck at the head of a short run. It leaped out of the water several times and went on a few strong runs before being brought to hand. It hit my point fly, an orange glow bug. It completely trashed my rig in the fight; the dropper fly got ripped off and the orange glow bug was coated in river muck. That fish caused so much commotion fighting that I decided to move up river rather than continue to fish the same run. I figured any other fish in that run would have been spooked. I worked my way up to a riffle that is more like a small waterfall. The river is dammed by boulders here and dumps water into a deep run below the riffle. I fished the fast water just below the riffle and hooked a brute. This fish went nose down into the current at first. As I applied pressure from the rod to work the fish in, it took off running. It ripped line of the reel so quickly I thought the reel was going to start smoking from the friction. I ran down stream chasing the fish. I worked the rod in the opposite direction turning the fish when it shot out of the water violently shaking its head in an amazing aerial display. It jumped several more times before I worked it in for a picture. One of the guys I saw while I was on the river was the guy at the fly shop who I got the report from the day before. He said he had caught one fish upstream of where I saw him; it’s good to know his reports are first hand. It was an excellent morning out on the river, beautiful weather, only a small handful of other anglers, and a couple of nice fish. I headed to class a happy man. I posted pics of both fish below; they are posted in order that they were caught. The second fish was larger, I made sure my foot was in the picture for scale (I wear a size 9).