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| The net is 14 inches long! |
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| Murphy's Law: bad shots of good fish. |
It was raining when Kenny arrived at my house around 5 AM, and it lightly rained all the way up, continuing to drizzle a bit for the first hour of fishing. The trace of rain didn’t help, as the water was about as low as I have seen it in a couple years (and last year was bad).
I had not been out fishing in a month, so I definitely misjudged when the sunrise would happen (a bit over-eager too, I guess). We made great time, and arrived streamside in total darkness, so I made the call to go to a diner that I haven’t been inside since I was a drunk 20 year old college student. Good old Besecker’s is still alive, and even got a facelift in the form of a front dining room, but the original trolley car diner in the back is still exactly the same, with the same booths I sat in as a young buck.
After a little breakfast, we started out the morning fly fishing a section that usually receives a fall stocking, and there were some fish around, but with low, clear water, it was tough getting them to commit. I got one rainbow on a prince dropper and battled a sucker or very sluggish trout for a minute on a pheasant tail beadhead in a deep pool.
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| This bow needs more to eat... |
Ken had some action on spinning plugs, but they all
seemed to come unbuttoned. He finally
brought one to hand drifting a hare’s ear under a float.
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| Another rainbow. |
We got tired of no action and no signs of life, so we
left for a section of the creek that we fished earlier in the summer with some success. I also did well with the fly rod another
morning on this same stretch, so we figured it had to be better than where we
were. After a short drive and some water
and snacks, we walked into a favorite stretch of the creek.
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| Late fall on the( not so ) mighty Brodhead. |
As evidenced by Ken’s healthy brown above, there are wild
fish present, and the PFBC also stocks the mile long stretch with fingerlings because
access is limited but habitat is great.
I decided to spin fish this stretch too, so Ken and I could fish closer
together. Ironically, I was too far away
to help him land or photograph his nice catch.
So that plan really didn’t work out.
I got one pretty wild brown on a brown trout patterned CD 5, and I moved
a couple other fish. I missed the same
rainbow twice in a shallow riffle, but I was pretty tired and hot by that point
in the day.
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| Eating his future young? I managed a pretty wild one on the CD 5. |
Our trying morning didn’t seem to affect Kenny, as he
caught the biggest trout of his life and a wild one to boot! After throwing 10 different lures throughout the day (Kenny's usual MO), the piggy
hit the tried and true Rapala plug. He
held it up for me and took the bad pictures above. I estimate the fish was a good 18 inches, fat
and healthy. Ken is beating himself up
for bad photography, but that’s Murphy’s Law.
The biggest trout I ever caught, a legit 28 inches, lives only in my
memory, and as recently as this spring I botched the hero shot on a big wild brown.
Today was a tough but memorable day, but I was glad to be
fishing again this fall. I am feeling
one of those “sick days” coming on this week…
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