So, my friend Pete drives 300 miles to come up and flyfish Maine only to get his butt kicked by the big Rainbows. We showed up to this stretch of water like you read about. Cold water, two streams dumping into the big river. As soon as we get in the water, Pete’s says, “Holy @#$%, did you see the size of that fish?” I did not see that one but I saw all the others. Monster Rainbows were thrashing all over the surface. You could see their shoulders and they were big fish. So, Pete and I are giving each other hi fives and we are ready to put the boots to these fish. I tie on a new leader a nice fly, light a smoke and I make my first cast. I put it right where it needed to be. I was waiting for that monster to grab it. Nope. Ok, maybe that fish was just a little weird, of course he’s gonna want a size 16 elk hair caddis, its like the Maine State Bird. Every fish will eat it. So, I find another whale rising. In fact big Rainbows are rising everywhere. I mean everywhere. So, the perfect cast, the perfect mend. Nothing. “Hey Pete, you gettin any of these to take?” Pete answers, “Nope.” So to keep a very long story short, Pete and I ended up trying everything in our flyboxes. We made thousands of casts. Wooly, emergers, caddis, bead head, copper john, etc.. We did have one monster fish take a caddis. He broke us off immediately, but that was it. One hit and that was it. The fish were everywhere, rising like you read about, but we could not catch em. We said, “let’s call joe-m, he will show up with his deadly nymph rig and teach these fish a lesson. He will know what to use.” So, we get joe on the cell and convince him to come help us. He shows up, walking tall across the river. “Ok boys, lets get em.” He starts out fishing with a 3 fly dropper system. Deadly on most rivers. Not here, not today. Fish are rising at our feet. Big fish. Joe switches to dries and before long he is just another dog in the dog house, unleashing everything in his box. These fish were not falling for any of our usual tricks. Joe did get some real nice fish on another section of river the day before, but I will let Joe tell that story in his article. So, all in all we had a blast, but we all got beat up. I am home now licking my wounds, Pete has his tale between his legs driving back 300 miles back home and Joe is probably already back in the river again trying for those elusive trout. It was litterally painful. Fishing over countless, beautiful fish and unable to dial into what they were taking. We will figure it out. SOON! And when we do, get ready for some good nice rainbows to take the place of the skunks.