March 1, 2019 – Snow, Deer, Fox, Mink, Heron, Mallards, Trout, Blue Winged Olives, Midges, and Me – Valley Creek

Plenty to see today.

I would have been happy just to get out fishing after the brief snow storm this morning.  Something about drab winter landscape, frigid and dark water, and fresh snow always makes me want to fish.  Today’s fishing, though, was not just an excuse to be outside, as the fishing was pretty darn good too.  After getting the boy to school following a late arrival call due to the overnight precipitation, I spent just under three hours on the water, from around 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM and, besides seeing all kinds of wildlife and signs of wildlife—and no other humans—I also landed at least half a dozen beautiful fish actively feeding on the active bug life.  I didn’t give the dry fly a shot, only because I was enjoying the good nymphing action in pocket water and riffles, but there were abundant small BWO’s and twice as many midges bringing fish out of hiding, into feeding lanes and, at times, to the surface.  They seemed keyed in on the emerging BWO’s, as all but one of my fish took a size 18 pheasant tail on the dropper, up higher in the water column.  Only one took my Frenchie anchor fly in a very deep pocket, and I think the same fish took a swipe at the pt the first time through the drift. 

My first of the day.  A nice start for Valley Creek.

Tami and I went out and met friends to see some live music last night, so the boy was hanging with my mom, no doubt eating candy and staying up late on a school night.  I should talk.  We didn’t get home until about midnight, so I was pretty happy to get a call from the boy’s school district at 5 AM this morning.  Before doing anything today, I had to go get the boy at my parents’ house, while Tami made lunch and such, and get him home for the bus before 9 AM.  That done, I checked the forecast for the day and saw the midday break in the weather and little potential for quick snow melt.  I didn’t have time to take a longer trip, but I had a feeling Valley would be decent today.  Thankfully, it was better than decent, dare I say good. None of the fish were Valley dinkers, all between 7 and 11 inches, and they were cooperative in the way I like them to be, set up in moving water actively taking bugs, which allowed me to tightline nymph to my heart’s content.

Only one who did not first choose the small pt.

The best fish of the day was my first fish, not only 11 inches, which is solid for Valley, but also healthy and plump.  Actually, a few of the fish appeared to be eating well over the last two weeks or more, so the hatches today were likely not an isolated event in recent days.  Olives like this kind of weather, and there were a couple sizes in the mix, along with plenty of midges.  Any close examination of an eddy showed a surface littered with bugs.  The trout had nice color too, so I wonder if that is from a renewed diet, like scuds, for example, or because they are hanging in different haunts with different bottoms—likely from both.  Let’s just say that they were not winter pale from deep sandy bottoms and a diet solely of midges and other less frequent opportunities.

How's my triple surgeon's knot look?  Got away with 4x flouro most of the day too!

I did not miss many fish, but I did miss at least two.  One scared the heck out of me.  I set the hook, and it did not move!  I saw the flash of white, so I knew it was a fish, but what happened is the fish had the dropper and the anchor had snagged a branch or something softer than a rock on the bottom.  I thought I had hooked a big fish for a second.  The decent fish that I did hook came off as I pulled upstream to release the snag.  I turned one other fish that I saw flash briefly before he shook off the line.  Even though hits were winter-light, I felt like I connected in some way with anything that took interest.  Active fish were in current, but I did see a few small pods of fish camped out in the usual winter spots.  I tried scuds and midges under a tiny indicator once or twice, but had no takers, so I went back to the technique that was working rather quickly and kept moving, searching for active fish.  I did pull one little plumper out of a deep hole by just patiently leaving my flies there, letting the eddy move the pheasant tail around on the longer dropper.  That kind of fishing takes way too much concentration, especially for 8 inch fish, so after having success once, I didn’t do that with much frequency either.

Two shots of the same plumper.

As you may have noticed from my lengthy title today, besides the usual deer, I encountered a mink and a fox, easy to spot in the fresh snow, though not so easy to capture on a cellphone camera.  Her fresh prints revealed that the fox had used a snow-covered deadfall that spans the creek to cross over at some point this morning.  The mink appeared in my peripheral vision early in the trip and headed right for cover in deliberate fashion while I dug for my phone and failed miserably.  Thankfully, a group of mallards figured out that the right call was the go downstream in order to avoid me, but not before taking a few short, raucous flights upstream, landing in the holes I planned to hit next.  The fish are used to this kind of noise, I think.  The heron also didn’t stick with me long.  All this paired with the quiet and solitude following the snow made for a memorable moment on the water awfully close to home.  Olives also signal more fishermen soon shaking off the winter cobwebs, so I was very grateful to get a weekday shot at the fish with zero company besides all these suburban survivors around me.

Nice colors on one I managed to dig out of a slow eddy.