This morning we headed out to fish the Foss River. At first, we tried fishing on the west fork of the river. The water here was calm, slow, and shallow, with minimal holding water. I spotted hundreds of trout fry, but nothing bigger than two inches. After fishing that area for three hours none of us had had any contact with fish, and I assumed that the adult rainbow trout were holding farther downstream in the main river, where many deep pools and slow-moving eddies are found, and that the trout fry are farther upstream to avoid being cannibalized by their parents, so to say. We traveled farther downstream, located a spot, and fished it up and down. I caught seven fish; all healthy, wild rainbow trout. One of the fish that I caught was twelve inches; another fish being eleven inches. However, the average fish between all of us was about nine inches. The Foss River does present some challenges to the fly fisher, though. The current is very fast, so achieving the essential drag-free presentation is difficult, and the many riffles and bubbles produced by the rapids will make it easy to lose track of your dry fly. I found that even with minimal flying insects present, a yellow Kaufmann Stimulator in size fourteen produced the most fish, including my twelve inch and eleven inch fish. Please practice catch-and-release on this river, as the entire poulation of trout is supported buy annual spawning, not stocking. Good luck on the water!

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