salmonoid
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2007
- Messages
- 2,711
Thanks to the wonderful lengthening daylight hours, I had the opportunity to engage in some early evening fishing last Friday. Despite low flows in the spring, recent spring freshets have served to recharge water levels to some extent and the two streams I've fished in the past month have been flowing nicely. With the turn towards summer and with the natural tendency of brookies to be looking up this time of year, my clear inclination for fly selection is to give the nod to a dry. Last time out on this stream, I started with a stimulator and a green weenie dropper, but ditched the dropper after nine out of ten fish were caught on top. So this time, I figured I'd go just with a dry (Royal Wulff).
I got to the stream, geared up, and realized that somewhere between my last fishing trip and Friday, my normal goto fly reel (Pflueger President) had disappeared (and still hasn't been found). Of course, thats why one has one or more sets of backup reels (not something that other members of my household understand, though), so out came the Pflueger Supreme, which was the only one I could find. The next hurdle was trying to find a fly that didn't have the hook eye encased in head cement, but once that was overcome, I cast into the first pool. This pool usually yields something - its deep, but it also gets stocked. Amazingly, last time out, I pulled a gorgeous native brookie out, that had somehow survived the stockie fisherpeople gauntlet, but this outing, I couldn't raise a strike. Moving up stream, I had a few half-hearted takes, but almost an hour into the evening, I had managed to catch only three fish. Further, my dry fly ended up being fished more like a wet (although thats just as effective for native brookies, IMHO).
And so I decided to change it up. I debated putting on a nymph or a green weenie, but ultimately decided that with the slight murky tinge to the water (apparently there had been significantly more rain there the day before than at home), going to a winter and early spring fly, the venerable wooly bugger, would be my next try. No sooner than switching and casting did I see the first roll of a brookie, and before long, the fish were coming to hand on a much more regular basis. With the murkiness of the water, I was picking up fish less than five feet away from me and was able to walk right up to the side of some of the runs and cast away.
I continued to work upstream; I saw one set of washed out boot tracks streamside, but it was obvious no one had fished that day. The only folks I encountered were a father and a son out walking their dog and I only saw them from afar. I did manage to land one small sunfish, that had a curious black eye spot (a wild brownie wannabe??), as well as one TINY brookie, that left me asking myself - how is that even possible? There was the obligatory chub from the one hole that I always hook a chub in, think I'm into a big brookie, and then think of Sasquatch as I discover its only a chub. That little gorge formation also yield a pair of brookies that looked like they could have been twins.
And then there's the golden fish, which is this perfect little native brookie that I've caught at least three times, and which has by far the orangest belly of any fish that I've caught from this stream in recent memory. And, as noted previously, the lengthening days made for a good evening of fishing; it was almost 8:30 when I stopped fishing and it was still light by the time I returned to the parking lot, a mile downstream.
On my previous trip to the stream, there was sporadic bug activity and the fish took readily to dry flies. But this trip, that was not the case. While I was disappointed to not watch the savage explosion of brookie-turned-surface-to-air missile, it pays to sometimes change things up and abandon your original tactic. 20 brookies later, I'm glad I did just that.
I got to the stream, geared up, and realized that somewhere between my last fishing trip and Friday, my normal goto fly reel (Pflueger President) had disappeared (and still hasn't been found). Of course, thats why one has one or more sets of backup reels (not something that other members of my household understand, though), so out came the Pflueger Supreme, which was the only one I could find. The next hurdle was trying to find a fly that didn't have the hook eye encased in head cement, but once that was overcome, I cast into the first pool. This pool usually yields something - its deep, but it also gets stocked. Amazingly, last time out, I pulled a gorgeous native brookie out, that had somehow survived the stockie fisherpeople gauntlet, but this outing, I couldn't raise a strike. Moving up stream, I had a few half-hearted takes, but almost an hour into the evening, I had managed to catch only three fish. Further, my dry fly ended up being fished more like a wet (although thats just as effective for native brookies, IMHO).
And so I decided to change it up. I debated putting on a nymph or a green weenie, but ultimately decided that with the slight murky tinge to the water (apparently there had been significantly more rain there the day before than at home), going to a winter and early spring fly, the venerable wooly bugger, would be my next try. No sooner than switching and casting did I see the first roll of a brookie, and before long, the fish were coming to hand on a much more regular basis. With the murkiness of the water, I was picking up fish less than five feet away from me and was able to walk right up to the side of some of the runs and cast away.
I continued to work upstream; I saw one set of washed out boot tracks streamside, but it was obvious no one had fished that day. The only folks I encountered were a father and a son out walking their dog and I only saw them from afar. I did manage to land one small sunfish, that had a curious black eye spot (a wild brownie wannabe??), as well as one TINY brookie, that left me asking myself - how is that even possible? There was the obligatory chub from the one hole that I always hook a chub in, think I'm into a big brookie, and then think of Sasquatch as I discover its only a chub. That little gorge formation also yield a pair of brookies that looked like they could have been twins.
And then there's the golden fish, which is this perfect little native brookie that I've caught at least three times, and which has by far the orangest belly of any fish that I've caught from this stream in recent memory. And, as noted previously, the lengthening days made for a good evening of fishing; it was almost 8:30 when I stopped fishing and it was still light by the time I returned to the parking lot, a mile downstream.
On my previous trip to the stream, there was sporadic bug activity and the fish took readily to dry flies. But this trip, that was not the case. While I was disappointed to not watch the savage explosion of brookie-turned-surface-to-air missile, it pays to sometimes change things up and abandon your original tactic. 20 brookies later, I'm glad I did just that.
