Brownies and Bows of the wild sort

As of late I have come to realize how much I enjoy catching beautiful fish.  Each shimmering specimen brought to hand has its own unique palette of natural paint.  The vibrant colors decorating our fine scaled friends never ceases to amaze me. 

These in-person and brief art shows are not for everyone.  The enjoyment which comes from these encounters is intimately connected with ones own perspective.  I am inclined to think that many passersby would be surprised at what cannot readily be seen.  Any Joe Schmoe who stops to look at the water would most likely stare, probably not see anything in the water, and think there probably are no fish in that area.  But on closer inspection there are in fact many fish, and these fish, when viewed closely are very bright and colorful creatures.  Put simply, it's amazing that such a flashy bit of living art can hide so well in plain sight.

To the patient observer, or maybe just to the patient angler, a trip to the gallery can be arranged... even on the rainiest of days.

The man of the hour, or maybe just the bug of the day.

This day on the river was amazing.  Oodles of bugs were hatching and the fish were in a feeding frenzy on the top.  There were even some stone flies going off!  Unfortunately we only had our nymphs and streamers.  We still managed plenty of fish.  The rain dumped on us for a while and the whole day was overcast.  I hope I can make some time to get out again.

This awesome brown was a definite "cherry on the top" for the day.  He took the little copper nymph previously shown.  There were some other biggies rolled, but with such a small hook the fight didn't last too long.

Shane managed some magnificent browns.  Many of which had beautiful blue hues on their gill plates.

Thanks Shane, for a great day on the water.