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| Pretty bow |
I was off
today, and I wanted to trout fish. I had
taken off Tuesday and Wednesday this week because I had a fluke trip (that was
cancelled due to weather) on Tuesday, and pre-planned to have a day of rest and/or
fishing on Wednesday. With heat and rain
for what feels like forever, there weren’t many choices today, honestly. I usually have to be pretty desperate in like
early August to hit this particular creek, but this has not been a normal
year. The creek is a bottom release tailwater,
so the water temperatures rarely get above 60 degrees when the reservoir is
holding a good bit of water. It sees
temps in the low 50s well into the late spring most years. Today, the water temperature was 58 F and the
storms last night gave a (too) brief break in the humidity, so I was in the
best possible place besides a swimming pool this morning. The beach may have been less comfortable! It was still hot and going to get close to 90
degrees today, so even though I was timid about making the first steps into the
cold water at 5:30 AM, it felt pretty damn good from the start. I waited until 7 or 8 to get the
undercarriage wet, but I felt like swimming by 10 AM. I hit two spots with some public access (one
public-ish) and caught a good number of fish.
The creek has wild browns, and I have caught some decent ones over the
years, but today the only evidence of their presence was a strong showing of
one- and two-year-olds. The big old bows,
full of piss and vinegar in cold, oxygen-rich water, made up for it. I had a blast during a couple of really fishy
spurts, incredulous that they just would not give up fighting. Water was on the high and stained side, so I did
not get the dry fly action I was hoping for, but I pivoted and caught fish both
nymphing at spot one and fishing a dry/dropper at spot two. Even as the sun got higher and the fog burned
off, I was comfortable, so I stayed out until 11 AM, which is sometimes unheard
of this time of year. That said, I bet I
did not catch a fish from 10 to 11 AM—I was just casting and staying cool—so I
headed home after that.
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| Big, angry hen! |
I started out
with a dry dropper because that is usually an effective way to fish this
creek. It is not all that deep most of
the time, and because it’s cold and full of stocked trout, the fish spread out. I saw some dimplers before 6 AM, and they
ended up being wild brown trout youth. After
catching a few 4-inchers in a row, I decided to leave these little guys alone. I found some deeper water and changed to a
bobber to get some reach to deeper water.
Eventually, it seemed like the bobber with small bugs was the move. To begin the morning, I was throwing a 5 wt
with a floating line to push a big stimulator out there, but I love to bobber
nymph with my 10’ and 10’6” rods and a mono rig. I am just so used to being able to keep
almost all the line to the bobber off the water while high-sticking. Before walking up through a riffle to the
next deep hole, I went back to the ‘Ru and picked up my 10’ 3 weight rod. I had a walts on the anchor and on the
dropper what I can only describe as a soft hackle version of a zebra midge. It was an 18 not a 22 or anything too crazy,
but that little dropper got the job done on some solid holdover rainbows.
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| Cold water and laurel in bloom. |
The biggest one
fought so hard I was convinced I had finally found a big brown. When she showed silver, I was a little disappointed until
I realized she was a handful on a 3 weight rod and 5x tippet! She even jumped a couple times before I took
a successful swipe with the net to end this fight in a reasonable amount of
time. She was a big, fat bow. I got a few more solid fish in this same hole
before deciding to forego wading another shallow riffle to look for holding
water and, instead, head to another spot.
I still wanted to throw a fly line today, perhaps even catch a couple on
a dry fly. I drove past one spot that I
had in mind, but I was curious if anyone else was out on a Wednesday, so I drove
further to a far more popular stretch.
There were three cars, but a couple looked like hikers or dog swimmers,
so I decided to investigate. I actually saw no other fishermen in range, so I decided to fish this spot. I have had some success with browns in the area
and was still holding out hope for at least one adult.
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| A good place to be on a hot day. |
Well, my brown
trout hole had a tree in it, and I did see another fisherman downstream in a
deeper stretch, so I made the most of my visit and tossed the dry dropper for a
while. I had success from 9 to 10 AM but
could not buy a hit after 10 AM. As I
noted above, I stayed and worked some water I have not worked in years. The three rainbows I did catch in the first
hour were not as large or ornery as the first stop, and they did not eat the
dry. I did get to throw a fly on a fly
line and have them pull the dry under while eating the dropper, however. I guess that is some novelty after a spring
of nymphing a lot of high water. Today was
less of a grind because the humidity was down early in the morning and the water
was cold, but it was still a grind. Up
at 3 AM, on the road by 4:15 AM, but I took a nap after I got home around noon,
so I had a relaxing and successful trip and day. Not the best day to have off work, but not
the worst one either. The grind continues.
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| Some nice looking stockers. |
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