Pictures of Trout, Salmon, and Grayling, Page 4

I kept my limit of cohos and gave them to a friend to smoke, since my freezer is full of sockeye already.

This nice brown trout was so well-camouflaged at the bottom of the stream that he required a zoom lens, polarizing filter, and digital contrast enhancement to photograph. My friend Ian and I watched from the bridge as this big trout fed on nymphs for several minutes, and then we took turns trying to catch it. The selective brown practically laughed us off the river.

This king salmon was the only one I landed in a day of fishing. I hooked and lost 7 others in heavy rapids.

Even stocker grayling are pretty. I planned to keep this one for dinner if it was the first of many, but the others weren't biting and the stringer hadn't done any permanent damage, so I released it unharmed.

It's nice fishing for salmon in such clear water, and really fun when they're as aggressive about chasing the fly as these fish were.

This pretty male Coho salmon took a purple egg-sucking leech.

Here's another beautiful trout, a 17.5 inch stream resident rainbow. He took a grouse & brown soft hackle during a Hendrickson spinner fall over a riffle--probably as a drowned spinner, but maybe as one of the caddis pupae that I suspect were hatching earlier in the day. This fish was in amazing condition, and it leapt clear of the water at least three times.

This beautiful 20 inch brown put up one heck of a drag-screaming fight. This was one of almost a dozen big trout that hit my flies this evening... and the only one I successfully hooked and landed. That was partly my fault, though. I cannot complain about the action!