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| A few took a liking to a caddis larva including one good one that slipped the barbless hook before his close up. |
I worked on some paperwork at home today until around 10 AM, and then I checked the radar on the weather website. I thought maybe I would toss the spinning rod for a bit this morning, but the gages looked fine for fly fishing too. It rained pretty heavily for a couple hours, but it looked like mostly short, heavy bursts, so I decided to head west and hope I drove out of the storms. I brought a rain jacket, but I didn’t end up needing it by the time I arrived at the creek around 10:45 AM.
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| Slowly getting green (and easier to hide). |
Valley was a tad muddy, but it was definitely
fishable. Fish had no problem finding a
red zebra midge in size 18, and they also weren’t secure enough with the
stained water to chase a streamer. In
fact, they were probably ready for dries by the time I left, as the creek was
clearing up quickly, and bug life was active.
I saw midges and olives hatching, and fish were on the baetis nymph or
the zebra midge dropper quickly, like they were chasing the emergers (and hungry).
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| A colorful one on the red zebra midge |
I have had a hunch that caddis will be early this year
(everything else is), and I think I saw one today that I swatted to the water
instead of gently catching. At any rate,
fish didn’t pass up a caddis larva today either. I think I brought 2 to hand on the midge, and 2
on the caddis, 1 or 2 on the baetis, and I dropped a couple others here and
there using barbless and no net.
The best fish of the day came on my first or second cast,
and he got away, of course. I casted
into a tight spot with a down tree, overhanging limbs from another tree on the
other side, and branches all over the bottom.
The fish grabbed the dropper and headed for the bottom, hanging himself
around some sunken branches. I kept
steady pressure and could feel him thumping.
Sometimes they will free themselves if you just keep pressure and
sometimes they won’t. Today, he popped off sending my painstakingly tied first
rig into a tree above me. It was so bad
that I just starting cutting off flies and tippet… Despite that frustrating start, five or six wild trout, 30 minutes from home, and in a short window on a weekday is nice
work if you can get it.
I've seen where yo alluded to streamers after rain before. So your feeling on the streamer in stained water is that it's more about their feeling of security in murky water than it is about them not getting too close of a look at the streamer?
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That's part of the equation, yes! To chase they have to feel secure. I think the big ones load up on calories in the rain, and then stick their heads into log jams the rest of the time. The other part is that they can't see as well and react to movement. Rapalas after the rain are deadly. Also, the minnows feel more secure too, which is bad news for them.
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