I woke up naturally at 6:30 AM and made a breakfast of eggs and bacon. I was on the water at 8:30 AM and casting a nymph rig with a #14 Copper John followed by a #18 Pheasant Tail with flash and no bead and ended with a #20 RS-2. At 9 AM, I hooked a big brown trout. He made a huge jump and tossed the middle hook that he had intially struck. Luckily for me, the RS-2 caught his tail. I fought him for quite a while and walked fifteen yards downstream with him as he ran. Finally, I landed the 16.5" long, 3" wide brown. This is the largest trout I have ever caught. I eased the artistically colored fish back into the water and kept fishing.
When the tricos started hatching, I switched to my last foam bodied caddis and trailed it with a #20 trico and a #22 trico. I caught a small trout on the caddis. I dropped the last two tricos and tied on the pheasant tail and RS-2 again. I caught another small trout and then got a big hit on the caddis at the same spot where I had previously caught the large brown. I didn't get the hook set.
The bite died down. So, I wandered downriver in search of fishing holes to target later in the evening. By 11:30 AM, it was too windy for me to fly fish. I left the river and made sandwiches for lunch on the back of my truck. Afterward, I went to the nearby Chaparral General Store to buy some more flies and an icecream sandwich. I talked for nearly and hour with a man who was working there. The man's name was Warner, and he emanated energy as he spoke of fly fishing. He gave me some good advice for fishing the river and lit up as he told me about the salmon run between the 2nd and 4th weeks of October every year. I am not sure where he was from but he had a very interesting accent, one in which he barely acknowledged the letter R in the words he spoke. I greatly enjoyed listening to him as he told me tales of the monster fish that lurked within the realm of The Dream Stream.
I headed back to camp and wrote in my journal for a while. I returned to the stream at 4:30 PM, cruising to Parrot Head music (Jimmy Buffet). I parked in the lot outside of the front gate to the park and napped as I waited for the wind to die. It never did, and it looked like it was about to rain. So, I decided to head back to my camp and enjoy the last real night of my trip.
I was able to start my fire much more easily than the night before, as I had dried out the wood with the previous night's fire. I cooked sausage and egg burritos, tying fly rigs as I waited for them to cook. I enjoyed my last night with a couple beers, my last cigar, and a great view of the surrounding scenery.
Afterward, as I was packing up for the night, some people came by and asked me if I knew where a certain campground was located. I didn't, but I offered to drive them around to find it. Being as they had been wandering for nearly an hour, they gladly accepted. They welcomed me to breakfast in the morning, but I graciously declined, telling them that I would be on the river early in the morning.
By 10:40 PM, I was in bed.
Odometer - 5300 mi
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