Ralph Rainbow

If we hadn't seen Ralph, a brightly colored rainbow of 16 or 17 inches, Asher and I would have left the Owens River content with a few bass we'd caught and a handful of other strikes. We did see him, though. In fact we saw him very clearly, holding in a current line where a spring branch flows into the Owens. He was right across the stream from us and holding steady.

If you fish much, you likely know where this is going and may have a similar story. Short version is that Asher and I spent probably 45 mintes of our day standing in one place and making short targeted casts to present lures to a single fish, which actually hit a Rebel Micro Minnow once and which turned on other offerings just often enough to keep us interested. I couldn't help but think about how pretty Ralph would look in pictures. In truth, though, the motivation to keep casting was much less practical than that. Being boys, Asher and I simply wanted to win.

We didn't win, and we left Ralph Rainbow sitting in the same spot where we first saw him. In truth, though, the game of trying to make that one fish bite might have created a longer lasting shared memory for Asher and me than if we had caught the fish. At least that's how I prefer to think about it!

#RebelTroutTrek