Out of the ordinary

Having had a day off in the middle of the week a few weeks back, I took advantage of it and hit my home water, the Winooski.  It was still running high, but it finally went from full blown chocolate milk to off-color.  I wanted to run into some steel before they left, but the water was too high to wade out to get to the good water.  I was forced to fish some slow, deep water.  There were steelhead smolts rising everywhere, which was fun to watch.

I decided to check out some water I usually don't fish, so I took off and finally ended up at a spot with a little bit of room for a backcast.  The sun came out every 20 or so minutes, which allowed me to see some dark shapes in about 5 feet of water right above a run.  I was hoping for steelhead, or even salmon.

I threw on a tandem nymph rig with a weighted black stone and a hares ear dropper and was surprised to hook up so quick into one of the dark spots.  I knew right away it was not a salmonid by the way it fought directly after the hookset.  I had a hunch what it was and it was confirmed when I got it near surface.

A big redhorse!

A fat 28" redhorse, I was happy!

Although not as fat, almost as long...27"

I was definitely not bummed by catching these big guys.  They make for a great fight on a fly rod, and are actually hard to get to take a fly.  Honestly, I'm not sure how I managed to get these two guys, but all the other fish in the area wouldn't even sniff my flies.  Maybe I spooked them, or maybe they just shut down. 

As for my salmon and steel quest - I was lucky enough to watch a massive salmon porpoise way out in the middle of the river a few times.  One of those, "hey man, why can't you get a fly out 150'?" kinda fish...