Current River 8/21/2004

Where: Current River, Tan Vat Access I was a little tired after fishing/hiking Friday night, so I slept in a little Saturday morning. After waking and eating some breakfast I headed down to the Current River and Tan Vat access. I arrived at Tan Vat around 12:30 am. There were quite a few cars at the parking area, but I suited up anyways. I could see two anglers just up from the big Tan Vat hole on there way down. I proceeded upstream from and passed them with some friendly hello's. After the first riffle and in the first big hole I could see plenty of browns and a couple nice rainbows. I had two strikes on a humphy dry and that was the end of it. I proceeded upstream and picked up two rainbows on a mohair leech. Once again moving upstream I put on a size 18 elk hair caddis and fished up under the over hanging trees on the left side of the stream. I had a couple of hits and some good looks but no fish came to hand. Finally A little feisty brown took my dry and the fight was on. During the short struggle I must of excited a larger brown because he came out of his hiding place to inspect what was going on. After releasing the fish and resting the spot for a bit I began casting again. I was hoping for the larger fish. After three more drifts the big guy showed his head. The was a small eddie maybe a 18 inches out from the bank and under an overhanging tree. My cast landed right at the edge of the eddie line and I put a small upstream mend in my line to keep it there as long as possible. Then I watched as the take played out in slow moting. The big bruiser slowly came up and inspected the fly, carefully poking his snot from the water and sucking in the tiny caddis. After his nose dipped down below the surface I struck with a firm hook set. Instantly he knew something was not right and shot down stream. It was all I could do with my little three weight to turn him. After a short fight in the middle of the stream he slowly came to hand. He was a good 18 inches and as fat as could be. That was my largest fish to come from the Current River. I finished the day off with a couple more little browns but would have been happy to end the day after that catch.