March 11, 2020 – Another Rare Afternoon Trip Made Rarer – Pickering Creek

One pretty fish away (for a minute) from the crowd.

There were 4 or 5 vehicles along the short DHALO stretch of the Pickering at 1 PM this afternoon, but I wasn’t in the mood to crouch Valley, which could also have crowds looking for olives.  Instead, I walked a good 500 yards downstream of the usual haunts to look for holdovers that got washed or willingly made their way down since the stocking in the fall.    I was secretly wishing for a wild brown too, since I found one last year in this general area, but that did not happen today.  I did, however, find a really nice holdover brown in a hole that should have held more.  She had great fins and colors but too many fused clusters of spots and no blue eye spot.  Still, it was fun while it lasted.  A nice guy who had never fished the creek must have seen me go downstream to avoid him and followed, thinking I knew some secret stash of spring stockies.  Poor fella.  He cast all over the pocket water I intended to sneak up through, so I was not surprised that I found nothing else here in sunny conditions and normal flows.  I was glad that I did not get pissed since he seemed relatively new to the game.  Instead, I offered some help on bugs and higher percentage water.

Clear with normal flows, plenty of bugs.

Little black stoneflies, larger midges, and black caddis were all present.  The brown took a CDC soft hackle jig with a purple hot spot, so she might have been enjoying the twin-propellered stoneflies.  I was rolling a walts worm on the anchor, but I caught nothing on that today.  By the time I reached the area where I parked again, the other dude had gone, perhaps to stockier pastures upstream.  It was plenty stocky where he had just vacated, however.  Those who read this blog a lot know I don’t fish the dry much, but since today was the second rare afternoon trip this week, and some porky rainbows began rising to the caddis, I had to give it a shot.  It was ugly, the rig not the fishing.  I tend to leave my nymphing leader on and just tie a long piece of 6X mono tippet to the tippet ring like a lazy, albeit cocky, mitch.  I did not have a lot of larger dries with me, and I didn’t even have an olive caddis, let alone a black one.    I tied on a deer hair caddis in about the right size.  It must have been one of Sam’s because it had some little touches, like a bit of shuck and a fancier hook with little to no barb on it too.  Needless to say, I was pretty excited when a 16-inch rainbow came up and ate my first drift over her.

Some porkers.

I would say during the next hour, waiting for rises and resting the pod after fighting a couple particularly rambunctious ones, I landed a total of five plump rainbows and dropped a couple others.  Maybe the three weeks since their February 27 stocking date were awfully kind to the new guys, but based on the white-tipped fins on most of them, I would guess that the fish looking up were the holdovers from the fall stocking.  I was surprised not to find another brown in the mix, but I don’t know if the TU guys stock browns in the fall, so maybe that further supports my theory?  Either way, I made a second rare late afternoon trip rarer by busting out my dirty dry fly game for a minute.  You know, the 10-foot 3 wt. Orvis Clearwater did not cast the dry all the badly either!  Like earlier this week, though with different bugs, the hatch petered out around 4 PM.   I was home for dinner and able to pack up in the daylight for a NEPA adventure with the Silver Fox tomorrow.

Many looked liked holdovers, and they liked the dry fly.