It had been a minute since I had fished my 8'6" Steffen 7/8, so it was time to dust it off. I had originally intended to take my Bandit since I was going to be fishing big-ass flies for bull trout during a family camping trip but didn't really have room for it (the 3pc is 2pc as the lower two sections have been completely stuck together for several years (yeah, I've tried everything & my rod building friend tried everything when he was touching up the first stripping guide--no worries there since I rarely
need to take it fully apart since it's my primary tiger musky rod....by I digress). Anyway, I had it lined up with a ~300gr Airflo Streamer Max Short which actually worked very well for an ~8" fly. Originally I worked a bunch of submerged timber and moved one out from under who didn't like the sun in his face so he retreated back into his cave. I did find a low 20s player in a nice in a deep current seam who decided that something very similar to this (only with no eyes) looked tasty:
the player:
Unfortunately, I could only fish for about 45 minutes before I developed a bit of sciatica (twisted my back a little bit when loading up our camping gear the previous day, but didn't seem to be serious). At any rate, I spent the next several hours in urgent care...not fun. But, it's on the mend slowly, but surely.