Finally

  After plenty of recon at the local watering hole, we ran into some fellow pilgrims from the Northeast.  We traded bourbon for flies and awoke to find, in our possession, a handful of foam, hackle, elk hair, rubber-legged concoctions.  Properly armed, we set out on what turned out to be a suicide float from Windy Point to Storey Ditch.   Front after front has blown through in the past few days and today was no different.  The official report was sustained winds of 15 mph, but it felt like at least 30. The wind was blowing spray from the white water up into the boat and even the birds were having difficulty flying upwind.
  The stretch of river that we floated today was littered with volkswagen sized boulders that we were inevitably blown into, only to narrowly slide the nose of the boat inches from rock.  Most of the time anyway.  Kevin's Hyde had a handful of "character" touches added to it today.   We saw two bugs flying all day, but persisted with these big foam flies throughout the day.  We didn't do so hot in the numbers category, but I managed to hook this little fella'.

   This bruiser taped out at 21.5" and took me into my backing on a long fight downriver, which included sidetrips around some very nerve-racking boulders and the bank, which suddenly grew an infinite number of potential snags.
  Kevin and I have some more work to do on coordinating the picture taking, but this will do. We did our best to revive the fish and watched him swim off of his own accord.