Video from yesterday

[sarce]

Back home in SE PA this week and spent about two hours on a small stream yesterday. We got hit by a storm in the morning and the water was still high and off color in late afternoon. I caught a few fallfish, a baby sunfish, and one nice wild brown at the end to save the day. Here's a clip of one of the fallfish followed by the brown trout on the next cast.

There are a few reasons I wanted to show this video besides the fact that I caught a trout. First, you can see how badly this place flooded in the big rainstorm the other week. It normally flows 8-10 cfs this time of year and hit 1300 during the flood.

The other reason, and some of you may have noticed this even if I hadn't said something, is that this trout appears to be bleeding as it swims away. Up until that point nothing was out of the ordinary. The fish took a woolly bugger and was hooked in the lower jaw close to the corner of the mouth. I held it up for the camera for a few seconds and it was not bleeding at that point. it only took a second or two to remove the hook, but somehow that caused it to start bleeding. Bleeding fish don't always die afterward and I hope that was the case here, but it's a reminder to me that sometimes you can do everything right and fly fishing can still take its toll on a fish. Maybe something to keep in mind when we chastise others for rough handling based on one photo they post here.

 

[salmonoid]

A fish that has grown that size has seen a couple of years and had a few mishaps (non-angler related). He'll survive. Fishing is not flag football - anytime there is a hook, its full contact, pads on and sometimes injuries occur.

I'm more interested how you managed to catch a fish from one hole, and then walk upstream along the bank where the brown was holding, without sending telegraphic vibrations into the water and spooking him in the process Where you riding a hover board or something?

 

[Swattie87]

The Brown is likely fine. I had a similar encounter this past weekend. Cleanly hooked in the jaw with a barbless dry fly. When the bleeding is from the mouth and not the gills, I think they're generally fine.

 

[csoult]

salmonoid wrote:
A fish that has grown that size has seen a couple of years and had a few mishaps (non-angler related). He'll survive. Fishing is not flag football - anytime there is a hook, its full contact, pads on and sometimes injuries occur.

I wish more people would realize this and get off their high horses. Good call.

 

[k-bob]

wow that's a small stream ... I have been trying tiny mountain streams that drain < 1 sq mi, but have pools due to 5+% gradient. stream in video appear to be about as narrow, less than 8ft?

 

[sarce]

Where you riding a hover board or something?

Shhh...

The muddy water helped me get close. Normally I never could have pulled that off standing so close.

K-bob, it's a very unusual stream. In normal flows that bend is more like 5 feet wide. There are woodland sections that are 10-12 feet wide and generally very shallow. Then it hits meadow sections and narrows down to 4-8 feet but there are lots of knee-deep bends with undercuts just like in the video. Large pools are rare on this stream and sometimes you can go several hundred feet without seeing any good holding water.

In August a few years ago, I was fishing a slow pool that is immediately upstream of this bend and I caught a green sunfish and 8" native brook trout on consecutive casts. I've never caught another brookie there, although I have seen a couple in other sections.

 

[k-bob]

"Then it hits meadow sections and narrows down to 4-8 feet but there are lots of knee-deep bends with undercuts "

right, streams dig holes where they turn!

 

[JG63]

Didn't notice much blood - did see the Brown flash and take. Great vid! Nice "no-hands" releases too. That BT will get big with a fallfish/chub diet! You shooting a go pro?

 

[k-bob]

on streams digging holes where they turn.. some may be familiar with this spot where a SEPA wild trout stream takes a hard right, and digs a big hole!

 

[sarce]

JG yes, I'm using a Go Pro. I film basically everything now, and if nothing interesting happens I just delete the footage.

Not to beat this joke to death but Salmonoid, I would have been using my hoverboard for stealth, except I wrecked it a few weeks ago...

 

[salmonoid]

Darn. I was looking to try it out next week :-D

 

[lv2nymph]

Cool vid. Congrats.

 

[henrydavid]

Nice video, I have an older GoPro and being a camera buff I'm very unsatisfied with the video quality. Did you buy any attachments like the fish eye lens fix?

 

[sarce]

I haven't bought any attachments other than a few mounts. I have the hero 3 which is fairly new. There's a different version of the hero 3 that is at least twice the price but has a lot more features. I ended up deciding that filming in anything other than the highest resolution does not turn out that great. I still need to work out some bugs in the cheap editing program I use...note the black box around the edge. That shouldn't be there.