dc410
Well-known member
Spent some time fishing this weekend with a new fishing friend that has just started to flyfish. He was actually spending his first time on the water with the new starter outfit that he just purchased last week. Sunday morning I took him to a section of Shermans Creek that I had not fished for about 4 years and was looking forward to getting back on it. The weather was absolutely gorgeous Sunday morning. Air temps in the low 70's under a high pressure system with very low humidity. The water was very low and warm. I didn't have my thermometer (left it in my trout pack in the truck) but I would estimate it was in the upper 70's, maybe even 80 degrees. We spent a lot of time talking about warmwater flyfishing in general and working on casting, leaders and knots. He was a real quick learner. Right away I realized that all of the hits I was getting were in the deeper runs in the middle part of pools between riffles. Shermans Creek has some great rocky substrate in areas which is really good SMB habitat. I set him up on some of the best runs in the stretch of stream and it wasn't long until he brought his first SMB on his new outfit to hand. I had a blast watching him play and land the bass on his new 5 wt.
We didn't catch any big fish but both of us caught a fair number of SMB and fallfish. Most all of the smallies were in the 5-7" range or the 9-11" range denoting some very successful development of a few different age classes from a few years back. I also got into some fallfish that were smashing a pencil popper on the surface. They are a lot of fun to catch on top.
We fished from 6:30 to about 10:00 AM and saw lots of deer with several bucks in velvet starting to develop their antlers, a bald eagle, hundreds of birds - cardinals, warblers, flycatchers, scarlet tanagers, and the feature was a flock of cedar waxwings working the streamside vegetation and collecting bugs over the water. We also saw what I am almost certain was fisher hunting along the banks of the creek which was even more confirmed by a very active den burrow that we found on the walk out near where we saw the animal. The den had a freshly killed cottontail rabbit without the head and a groundhog head (without out the body) in the vicinity of the den site.
All in all it was a very relaxing and beautiful morning spent with a new friend on Shermans Creek. I think a new flyfisherman has been born. I could tell it by the look on his face.
We didn't catch any big fish but both of us caught a fair number of SMB and fallfish. Most all of the smallies were in the 5-7" range or the 9-11" range denoting some very successful development of a few different age classes from a few years back. I also got into some fallfish that were smashing a pencil popper on the surface. They are a lot of fun to catch on top.
We fished from 6:30 to about 10:00 AM and saw lots of deer with several bucks in velvet starting to develop their antlers, a bald eagle, hundreds of birds - cardinals, warblers, flycatchers, scarlet tanagers, and the feature was a flock of cedar waxwings working the streamside vegetation and collecting bugs over the water. We also saw what I am almost certain was fisher hunting along the banks of the creek which was even more confirmed by a very active den burrow that we found on the walk out near where we saw the animal. The den had a freshly killed cottontail rabbit without the head and a groundhog head (without out the body) in the vicinity of the den site.
All in all it was a very relaxing and beautiful morning spent with a new friend on Shermans Creek. I think a new flyfisherman has been born. I could tell it by the look on his face.
