We arrived at the Root late, but headed down to the river with a spotlight to see if we could spot any fish. There were fish holding everywhere, some were even hooked up in pairs and spawning in the riffles. The next morning we went back down to the same spot and there was...nothing. They had all moved up by the dam or back under the bridge and we couldn't find them. The pool below the dam was packed full of snaggers, so we headed off down stream in search of fresh fish. I scared a pod of 3 cohos out of a hole and one shot right into my leg and sat on my foot. I picked the fish up and got it headed in the right direction. We worked our way down to Colonial Park were I finally found some decent cohos, but was unable to hook up. Justin landed two cohos, but we decided to head down river in search of the browns. We started right below the Weir and as Justin was talking to me he hooked up. It was a big female brown, we couldn't believe it! It was close to 26 inches, right around 7 pounds. He decided to head up river in search of cohos and I headed downstream in search of browns. We met up again in Island Park and I hooked up to another big female close to 25 inches. These were fat fish, still holding their eggs. We met up with a guy in Lincoln Park who had caught a 15-pound female and another 10 pounder. We hit up Lincoln and Island parks the next day without success. I spotted a 15-pound female holding below one of the bridges, but by the time I got down to cast to her, she had taken off. We found another park way below Island and Justin hooked up with another 25 inch male brown that had gotten a little beat up during the spawn. The best flies again were orange patterns, but egghead-sucking leeches also produced fish.