Snuck down to Big Spring for a short evening on the stream. Beautiful day weatherwise, temps in the mid 70's with just enough breeze to challenge your fly placement. Hoped to latch onto some lingering sulphurs in the regulated water, but the surface action was kinda slow upon arrival.
Started out with a large black ant, prospecting and sightfishing. Unbelievably, on the third cast to a distant fish-like hovering shadow there was an impressive boil and I was quickly doing battle with an impressive rainbow. Luckily the bows don't know the 'bury myself in the weeds' trick that the Letort browns do, and we tussled much closer to the surface. The old 5wt did its job handling the jumps and runs and I was finally able to net a thick bodied bow of about 18".
Went on to miss a couple of other takes on the ant before decorating some streamside shrubbery with it. Noticed some bugs popping off the surface with some random rises here and there, so went thru a host of patterns trying to figure it out. Couldn't quite catch one of the hatching bugs, they were dark sulphurish in color, but were acting like a caddis in the air and coming up out of the water quick, about a size 16.
Then in the settling light, I finally had another bit of success with a sulphur emerger, fooling a very exuberant brookie. He went about 13" and was nice and thick with a lot of fight in him for his size.
Finished the evening with one more little dink of a rainbow on the sulphur pattern, then the stream got awfully quiet once the sun was really down at around 9:15 or so.
Started out with a large black ant, prospecting and sightfishing. Unbelievably, on the third cast to a distant fish-like hovering shadow there was an impressive boil and I was quickly doing battle with an impressive rainbow. Luckily the bows don't know the 'bury myself in the weeds' trick that the Letort browns do, and we tussled much closer to the surface. The old 5wt did its job handling the jumps and runs and I was finally able to net a thick bodied bow of about 18".
Went on to miss a couple of other takes on the ant before decorating some streamside shrubbery with it. Noticed some bugs popping off the surface with some random rises here and there, so went thru a host of patterns trying to figure it out. Couldn't quite catch one of the hatching bugs, they were dark sulphurish in color, but were acting like a caddis in the air and coming up out of the water quick, about a size 16.
Then in the settling light, I finally had another bit of success with a sulphur emerger, fooling a very exuberant brookie. He went about 13" and was nice and thick with a lot of fight in him for his size.
Finished the evening with one more little dink of a rainbow on the sulphur pattern, then the stream got awfully quiet once the sun was really down at around 9:15 or so.
