The Yough, Fayette/Somerset County, 8/2/2009

[albatross]

A good day on the Yough will keep you comming back for a long time. I had one today! The rain arrived just about the time I did at 6PM. I waited by the car under the trees till the rain passed. I was able to fish from 6:30 to 9. Flow was about 850 CFS below confluence and water temp was 61 F.

There were a few cahills comming off, perhaps some yellow drakes, and a few caddis. The fish were rising pretty steadily taking emergers or something in the film along with the ocassional large cahill. The fish (as they usually do) mostly ignored my surface offerings, but tonight I tried something different - soft hackles. I picked the soft hackle idea up from another recent thread where some of the other board members were sharing what worked for them (Thank-you).

My first hook-up came on about my 5th cast. A nice brown took my breadcrust softhackle and just kept going. Unfortunately, I had only one of that fly, but I had a few other soft hackles. I landed about a half dozen trout over the next couple hours, all but one on softhackles. I did manage one on top on a parachute cahill. I landed one brown and one golden rainbow, the rest were garden variety rainbows. One brook shy of a slam. The best fish of the night was a magnificent leaping 17 inch rainbow.

I had a ball. Hopefully pics to follow tommorow.

 

[albatross]

As I feared, the pics of the nice rainbow didn't turn out well. I'll post them anyway. My buddy got a shot of me with a bananna fish.

 

[jayL]

Nice outing Greg.

What methods did you use to fish the soft hackles?

I fish them often, usually on a dead drift, but I know there is more than one way to skin a cat with them.

 

[albatross]

I caught the fish dead drifting them under a dry. I was casting to rising fish, but they would rarely take my dry. Casting to risers was much more productive than just fishing the dry-dropper rig blind. I was also able to sight fish to some of the golden trout whether they were rising or not...
🙂

I did try swinging them a little at the end of most drifts to imitate an emerging bug, but no success with that technique.

 

[tomgamber]

Hard to hold that camera still when you are shaking...huh?
Always nice when someone hits the Yough well.

 

[YoughRiverGuide]

Sounds like a nice evening. That was a pretty bow.

Just one question: Did you wet-wade the river for three hours?

Brrrrrrrrrr.

 

[albatross]

YoughRiverGuide wrote

Just one question: Did you wet-wade the river for three hours?
Brrrrrrrrrr.

I wet waded for 3 hours with my 3 weight because my waders and my 5 weight took a trip with my son this weekend. Silly Dad didn't empty the back of the Jeep before loaning it out.

TomGamber wrote

Hard to hold that camera still when you are shaking...huh?

I had trouble keeping hold of the fish because the girth was too much for one hand. I also had trouble getting the camera phone far enough away from the fish so that the whole fish would fit in the shot. Alright, I may have been shaking a little too. Perhaps from wet-wading?

 

[greenghost]

alba,
Anytime you do well on that river, you deserve a "Congrats!"

After reading your post I gave myself a kick in the butt. I was going to go there Saturday, but wasn't sure if the water was going to be low enough. When I left Saturday morn, the USGS reading was 960 below Confluence, which for me was borderline.

Instead, I choose to go to some brookie streams in the area. Caught a bunch of small trout and a surprise 15" brownie in a little "crick." Still had fun, but would have preferred the open casting on the Yough. Oh well, still a few weeks ahead of good fishing there.

ttyl

 

[Fishidiot]

Nice report - sounds like you had a heckuva nice evening. That photo may be a bit off focus but you can clearly see it's a real beauty.

 

[David]

Oh, Albie...I just missed ya! We were down there, but the girls got caught out in the rain and didn't have a change of clothes. So we left right after the rain.

 

[albatross]

Sorry I missed you David. I hope the girls had fun.