September 8, 2024 – Not Too Bad for a Late Summer (Tr)Outing – SEPA Blueline

The mitch could fish.

A true mitch, excited about the cool temperatures and the potential for rain, found some time to fish this weekend.  It had been quite a while since my sometimes-primary fishing partner, young Eric, has wet a line.  He has young kids and a busy work life in the summer months, plus he has to save days for his other obsession, bow hunting each fall.  I think we have our wives to thank, at least in part, for this outing.  My wife and son were out in the neighborhood and ran into Eric’s family, and I think my wife planted the seeds, like “You need to get my husband out fishing.”  He needed it more than me, with me being close to 50 trips already for the year, but it definitely worked on Eric’s wife.  When I saw the forecast and the diminished rain predictions, I thought to myself, “Where else can we go?” knowing full well that he would want to fish our little spot in SEPA.  But despite the less than favorable flows, I also concluded, “Where else can we go?”  The crick did not disappoint, even if most holes were one and done and fish were smaller on average.  For a cold front morning in low, clear water, we were quite pleased with the morning’s results.  We had to cut it short before noon due to a family emergency, but we still had 4 hours of solid nymphing before I had to rush to the local emergency room to relieve my mom and the boy, who had already had a stressful enough morning.

An early start.  The toddlers promise a bright future, I hope.

This is a healthy little crick.  When we last fished it in the spring, we caught a mess of very nice small stream fish—the average was close to 12 inches with some 14-inchers in the mix.  We have caught the odd large trout too, but they move freely throughout the watershed, I believe, more seasonal, pre- and post-spawning interlopers than residents in these skinnier reaches.  I did not broadcast this to Eric in the spring, but I pessimistically feared that so many bigger fish from about the same year class gave me reason to be a little worried about the classes from the immediately following years.  No worries, as you will notice from the number of dinks we caught today—we even caught a couple YOY.  In the conditions—low and clear—we worked hard to catch a couple better trout, but I think they too move throughout the watershed, which may get marginal at times.  Perhaps evidence of that was the sheer number of chubs we landed.  In my first 6 casts of the morning, I landed four of them, and the other two, you might wonder? Smallmouth bass.  Those first two were dinks, but Eric landed a 12-incher less than an hour later.  In that same hole, I spotted a significantly larger bass pass through a spotlight of early morning sun.  When he hooked up, I thought for sure he’d hooked this bigger bass.  Still the one that he landed was a very solid small stream fish, and I landed two more close to 8 inches later in the morning way upstream from this one.

Seven or more of these brown invasives ;)  Eric hooked up to something fat.

Whatever the presence of these other coolwater/warmwater fish means—we have not caught a bass in here in all the previous trips—we also saw evidence of good reproduction, bugs like tricos aloft, even some olives, and still caddis and midge larva under the rocks.  In the spring, it has really been caddis and craneflies to date.  The mayflies weren’t heavy and weren’t widely distributed, but they were present.  The dry summer followed by storms had brought down some trees, but the course of the creek remained pretty true and mostly devoid of excessive sediment—except in places where it has been an issue since we started visiting here.  Some stretches are wider and shallow, but that can be said of many of the streams in the region following years of outsized and too-regular highwater events.  We have access to a good parcel of posted land, and two legal parking spots, and we even spoke with one of landowners out for a stroll in the cool morning breeze, insuring we have access to one of these stretches for future trips.  Eric grew up here, so he drizzled local spots and family names throughout his small talk to show his street cred—or is it considered field cred out here?

More pretty small stream wild fish.

We caught fish steadily, even if many were dinks and/or rough fishes—including suckers, dace, and other minnow species along with the creek chubs.  There was at least one trout in each hole that would cooperate.  They were hungry and feeling good in 58 degree water temps.  I was tossing a small, size 10 bugger, and most of the trout I caught met the bug on the fall.  We even had some splashy misses that connected on the very next cast, although some spotted us as they pursued the bugs and never came back if they caught a glimpse of us.  Eric tossed the old green weenie and drowned ant combo with slightly less success than the meat offering.  I had an ant on the dropper the entire morning and only caught two fish on it.  One was the best fish of the morning, part of a double, in fact, so I never took it off in case lightning was going to strike twice, I guess?  I had a small brown pounce on the bugger the second it hit the water, and then the bigger fish took the ant off the surface a half a second later.  Even in riffles, I saw the whole thing happen in real time, which was fun to witness.  I managed to net them both for some photographic content.

First double (I landed, at least) this year.

Eric missed it go down because he’d snuck back down to big bass hole after we’d given it time to clear from our previous intrusion.  He was hoping for a trout this time since we’ve landed some above average browns in this spot nearly every trip.  He got another bass instead, which helped bring our total to 7 for the morning, I believe.  I caught two more to end the trip at the upper end of one of our favorite beats.  We did not get to go much further because I had to take a call from the boy telling me my wife had disturbed a hornets’ nest while gardening.  We knew she was slightly allergic, but apparently more than we thought, and she now will have an EpiPen handy!  She got chased and stung so many times that they had to take her to the emergency room.  Good times.  I was an hour away from home, so the boy really stepped up and showed his new maturity.  He even knew to call my mom.  Eric was with me, and my other close neighbor buddy was out of town, so it was police and ambulance and all the drama.  All is well, but that was some trip-ending drama and the makings of a long afternoon (and a hefty bill, I assume).

A couple of the better ones today.  None of those 14 inchers from the spring.

Despite the dramatic ending, Eric and I had a blast out there while it lasted.  The woods were shady and cool with a slight breeze rustling through the dry leaves.  Deer were plentiful, as if they knew it was pre-season AND a Sunday.  Our last stop of the morning, where we ran into one of the landowners, has always been “my hole” in the rotation.  Or at least I always get first crack—Eric has his holes too, of course.  Well, we have always believed that this one has some springs nearby because it is almost always loaded.  Based on the hot summer, we should not have been surprised that it was even more loaded today.  When I tossed a bugger and saw a dozen fish of all varieties give chase, I got that fish in a barrel vibe.  The best trout I could see, a 12+ incher, was grabbing the bugger just as a smaller trout grabbed the ant, so I did almost have two doubles today.  I missed the good one and landed the dink this time.  The next two casts had fish swirling like feeding time at the aquarium!  It was nuts, but I only landed two more average trouts and then the two smalljaws before the fish all retreated under cover of a big ledge and undercut.  Had we had the time to rest them and try again, it may have been more of the same, but like I mentioned above it felt dirty.  We never got a chance to be unsportsmanlike because I had to rush home to take care of the aforementioned family health situation.  She is fine now, and the boy seems to have handled the stress the way I typically do (and my mom, as well, just chill and do what needs to be done).  Fishing helps ;)

Just a really pretty one.