February 21, 2017 – A Leisurely Few Hours with the Dry Fly – Pickering Creek DHALO

Sun and clouds, calm and wind, but a good day and  much more appropriate weather for February.

After Sunday’s tiring disappointment with Eric, I decided to take an easy walk on the Pickering Creek today and, if I was lucky, just target risers.  Besides tying on a midge to target one deep hole I had not fished in a while, I stuck with the plan too.  I worked the morning from home and cashed in some comp time for the afternoon.  I did have to come back to get the boy at the bus stop around 4 PM, so the window was short but long enough to make something of the afternoon.  The air temp got up close to 55, but it was breezy at times, which played a little havoc on my 3 wt. set up.  I had a 4 wt. in the ‘Ru, but I didn’t want to leave rising fish to hike back and re-rig.  It all worked out just fine in the end.

The Griffiths gnat despite some little black stoneflies around.

I fished from around noon until a little after three, and had plenty of action and five fish to hand.  For the first couple of hours, I had the place to myself.  In the last hour, one older gentleman arrived and headed upstream, and a few anglers were arriving as I was leaving.  The footprints and mud everywhere showed the signs of the weekend’s festivities, though.  I saw little black stoneflies coming off sporadically, but anything close that I had with me was refused.  The fall stockies have been in there long enough to refuse even a hi-vis Griffiths gnat (so much for giving the eyes a break).  I did play a sixth fish who took a zebra midge dropper under the hi-vis dry, so there was that option for a future day with less educated fish.  When I tied on a size 20 gnat, however, it was game on.

Some fatties showing signs of being caught many times...

Some of the fish I caught showed signs of being caught half a dozen times, but a few looked pretty pristine too, believe it or not.  The fish are getting bigger, and they were big to begin with, the average being 12 to 13 inches, with a few 14 inchers prowling around too.  A lot of the water seemed devoid of fish, and other holes had 10 risers in them.  Fish were rising in flat pools, but I had much more luck when some current was present, as is often the case.  The midges were size 22 or smaller, so the current also hid the fact that I was not exactly matching the hatch.  I don’t carry anything smaller than 20, generally, probably never will (?).  The warm up is coming again, but I prefer these 50 degree days.  I just hope it doesn’t get frigid when I have a week off in March…