mirabelasunshine
Well-known member
by dredging the bottoms of the deepest holes on one's river with a 3/0 clouser half-and-half in baby smallmouth colors indicative of a diseased character?
I need to know.
I need to know.
Be honest: is looking for a big brown ...
- Thread starter mirabelasunshine
- Start date
I never had much by way of results in huge deep pools but undercut banks - tree stumps and the like paid off for me.
milt spawn
Well-known member
Quite the contrary, I would say that method is of high character. Doing the same with a nitecrawler and some lead weight would be of questionable moral fiber in my estimation. milt:thumbsupu
mcnerney
Administrator
Brown trout as they get large become nocturnal in their feeding behavior, so rather worrying about big holes, etc., I would recommend fishing early in the am and/or late at night, or if your fully addicted then try some night fishing.
B
blackbugger
Guest
Nope.
mcnerney
Administrator
Here is a 22 inch Brown that I landed on a size 18 Trico pattern last fall:
Here is a nice Brown that Muzzy (aka muzz_flaco) landed on dries a couple summers ago:
Here is a nice Brown that Rod (aka rodneybo) landed a couple years ago:
Curt from Project Healing Waters landed this nice Brown while throwing streamers:
Muzzy landed this nice Brown on the Green below Flaming Gorge last year:
A nice Brown that a friend of mine in Pinedale landed on a size 14 parachute adams a couple summers ago:
Kirk (aka captkirk) landed this nice Brown a couple summers ago:
Here is a 24 inch Brown that a friend of mine landed on a Pat's Rubber Legs a few years ago:
Here is a nice Brown that Muzzy (aka muzz_flaco) landed on dries a couple summers ago:
Here is a nice Brown that Rod (aka rodneybo) landed a couple years ago:
Curt from Project Healing Waters landed this nice Brown while throwing streamers:
Muzzy landed this nice Brown on the Green below Flaming Gorge last year:
A nice Brown that a friend of mine in Pinedale landed on a size 14 parachute adams a couple summers ago:
Kirk (aka captkirk) landed this nice Brown a couple summers ago:
Here is a 24 inch Brown that a friend of mine landed on a Pat's Rubber Legs a few years ago:
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mirabelasunshine
Well-known member
Yes!
These are all wonderful fish. This is my best so far, a not-quite-22 incher that grabbed a big olive conehead madonna right after daybreak one morning last August. But I know there are bigger around. Forgive the out-of-water pic, now I know better.
I feel a little whacky going out there with striper gear, but I think I'm going to have to try it if only so I can check it off as something that didn't work.
These are all wonderful fish. This is my best so far, a not-quite-22 incher that grabbed a big olive conehead madonna right after daybreak one morning last August. But I know there are bigger around. Forgive the out-of-water pic, now I know better.
I feel a little whacky going out there with striper gear, but I think I'm going to have to try it if only so I can check it off as something that didn't work.
flyfishmich
Well-known member
what? they aren't out in the open?
nevadanstig
Well-known member
Does this count?
mcnerney
Administrator
A true linebacker, congrats!Yes!
These are all wonderful fish. This is my best so far, a not-quite-22 incher that grabbed a big olive conehead madonna right after daybreak one morning last August. But I know there are bigger around. Forgive the out-of-water pic, now I know better.
I feel a little whacky going out there with striper gear, but I think I'm going to have to try it if only so I can check it off as something that didn't work.
---------- Post added at 06:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:45 AM ----------
A true gem in anybody's book, you bet it counts!Does this count?
Sometimes it takes a day before I remember something. There was an evening spent with a friend on one of the truly large spring creeks in Pennsylvania back around 2001 or 02 I believe it was. It was June and the famous Green Drake was coming off the water. Just Vince and I had made the drive but we had been there a few days earlier with a third friend who wasn't able to go this trip.
There is a long stretch of fast water maybe 200 yards or more that feeds into a huge wide pool. That pool was full of fish and some were rising early. Now the Green Drake can bring some bruisers up to the surface to feed on these large May Flies and Vince had no intentions of leaving the pool and it was certainly large enough to keep a guy busy for a few hours. On our previous visit I had caught a few trout but they were pretty uniform in size and nothing about this evening told me there would be a change.
Off I went walking and climbing along the right shore and bank heading up stream. I kept going until I had passed the entire stretch of swift water and a small creek which dumped in on this same side of the big creek. There appeared to be some more dry fly water up there but I saw not a single rise. Based on the size of the fish caught down in the big pool and the presence of cabins I suspected that the big pool was stocked at some point and this stream does get some stocking to augment the trout population. I took a seat and watched, I don't know how long I sat but it was long enough for a mink to come sneaking along the bank and nearly crawl onto my right leg before it realized I was not part of the landscape. After the mink visit I removed my dry fly leader and put on a butt section - a 36" lead head - and a ten pound tippet about 2 feet long. With that rigged I tied one of my top secret feather wing streamers to it.
I headed for the swift water downstream and found that in the center of the channel it ranged between 2 and 3 feet deep and was strewn with some pretty good sized boulders. I worked the whole thing slow and as thoroughly as I could and as darkness was closing in around 9:25 or so I finally got a solid hook up. I'd seen several large dark forms follow as I made my way down but hadn't had anything I could feel on the line.
Vince was on his way walking up the length of the big pool in the failing light and as he got closer he realized that I was carefully making my way down toward the pool through the cobble near shore with something on the line. When I reached the calm water at the head of the pool I was just hoping that the hook point was going to stay the course and allow us to see what I had rose up from the currents. This was before I had any sort of digital camera and back then we just looked at a fish and let it go. That's what we did but it was clear that what we had in the shallow water at our feet was a brown trout that had to be past the 2 foot mark. Now days I catch silver salmon and I get quite a few of them every year and am pretty familiar with what a 7 to 9 pound fish looks like. Looking back and relying on memory I'd say we had a brown of maybe 6 1/2 pounds there that night.
My friend was full of questions, where, on what, any others, and I told him how I had spent the time since we had parted. Things like that were handy. What I mean is that an evening like that stood to insure a buddy that if he was to ask when not having been fishing with you for a month 'how you were doing' they tended to believe you when you said you were doing well. I don't know if Vince ever became a streamer fisher, in order to use what I used you had to make them and I don't think he did that.
The moral of the story is that they sometimes are in a place you would normally walk past. That big one was tucked between two large boulders in about 2 1/2 feet or more of water flowing at maybe 5 or 6 mph. I'd never had known had I not caught him, it was a male.
Ard
There is a long stretch of fast water maybe 200 yards or more that feeds into a huge wide pool. That pool was full of fish and some were rising early. Now the Green Drake can bring some bruisers up to the surface to feed on these large May Flies and Vince had no intentions of leaving the pool and it was certainly large enough to keep a guy busy for a few hours. On our previous visit I had caught a few trout but they were pretty uniform in size and nothing about this evening told me there would be a change.
Off I went walking and climbing along the right shore and bank heading up stream. I kept going until I had passed the entire stretch of swift water and a small creek which dumped in on this same side of the big creek. There appeared to be some more dry fly water up there but I saw not a single rise. Based on the size of the fish caught down in the big pool and the presence of cabins I suspected that the big pool was stocked at some point and this stream does get some stocking to augment the trout population. I took a seat and watched, I don't know how long I sat but it was long enough for a mink to come sneaking along the bank and nearly crawl onto my right leg before it realized I was not part of the landscape. After the mink visit I removed my dry fly leader and put on a butt section - a 36" lead head - and a ten pound tippet about 2 feet long. With that rigged I tied one of my top secret feather wing streamers to it.
I headed for the swift water downstream and found that in the center of the channel it ranged between 2 and 3 feet deep and was strewn with some pretty good sized boulders. I worked the whole thing slow and as thoroughly as I could and as darkness was closing in around 9:25 or so I finally got a solid hook up. I'd seen several large dark forms follow as I made my way down but hadn't had anything I could feel on the line.
Vince was on his way walking up the length of the big pool in the failing light and as he got closer he realized that I was carefully making my way down toward the pool through the cobble near shore with something on the line. When I reached the calm water at the head of the pool I was just hoping that the hook point was going to stay the course and allow us to see what I had rose up from the currents. This was before I had any sort of digital camera and back then we just looked at a fish and let it go. That's what we did but it was clear that what we had in the shallow water at our feet was a brown trout that had to be past the 2 foot mark. Now days I catch silver salmon and I get quite a few of them every year and am pretty familiar with what a 7 to 9 pound fish looks like. Looking back and relying on memory I'd say we had a brown of maybe 6 1/2 pounds there that night.
My friend was full of questions, where, on what, any others, and I told him how I had spent the time since we had parted. Things like that were handy. What I mean is that an evening like that stood to insure a buddy that if he was to ask when not having been fishing with you for a month 'how you were doing' they tended to believe you when you said you were doing well. I don't know if Vince ever became a streamer fisher, in order to use what I used you had to make them and I don't think he did that.
The moral of the story is that they sometimes are in a place you would normally walk past. That big one was tucked between two large boulders in about 2 1/2 feet or more of water flowing at maybe 5 or 6 mph. I'd never had known had I not caught him, it was a male.
Ard
mirabelasunshine
Well-known member
^^ Yeah! That's what I'm talking about.
I tried the tactic in question this morning -- not on a deep, deep hole, but on a generally reliable spot where a focused, cobbly riffle punctuated by larger boulders hits the top of a large pool. Hard to explain the topography of it, but there's a really nice seam zone with bathtubs 4-5 feet deep, and there's always something nice around. I bombed it pretty hard, got one good yank but no hookup, and that was it.
After resting it a while I went back and employed more conventional nymphing tactics and caught a few nice browns, two around 14" and this guy who was more like 16, but the hunt for the real bruisers will continue.
I tried the tactic in question this morning -- not on a deep, deep hole, but on a generally reliable spot where a focused, cobbly riffle punctuated by larger boulders hits the top of a large pool. Hard to explain the topography of it, but there's a really nice seam zone with bathtubs 4-5 feet deep, and there's always something nice around. I bombed it pretty hard, got one good yank but no hookup, and that was it.
After resting it a while I went back and employed more conventional nymphing tactics and caught a few nice browns, two around 14" and this guy who was more like 16, but the hunt for the real bruisers will continue.
flyminded
Well-known member
That's a healthy looking 16" brown.
Low light conditions and rain usually give me the best results - especially if the water is starting to color up a little as a result of the rain. Seems the bigger Browns tend to get a little less guarded on a rising river.
Low light conditions and rain usually give me the best results - especially if the water is starting to color up a little as a result of the rain. Seems the bigger Browns tend to get a little less guarded on a rising river.
That's a nice one.
Another memorable fish came from a spot in a small stream that just screamed trout. Interestingly I fished that place every time I went up the creek and never caught a thing. On a rainy early morning I hooked and lost one of the largest brown trout I was ever close to landing. The thought here is that the reason I never caught any normal fish there was the presence of the big one.
Fishing the way I have for at least since the mid eighties with streamers while others dry fly fished and nymphed I was looking for a few fish. Almost always I could find one and sometimes more than one but I was doing what I liked. As the years passed I got better at it and even here I manage some nice fish on a regular basis. Rainbows are harder for me to figure out than browns were but I'm getting better every season.
Another memorable fish came from a spot in a small stream that just screamed trout. Interestingly I fished that place every time I went up the creek and never caught a thing. On a rainy early morning I hooked and lost one of the largest brown trout I was ever close to landing. The thought here is that the reason I never caught any normal fish there was the presence of the big one.
Fishing the way I have for at least since the mid eighties with streamers while others dry fly fished and nymphed I was looking for a few fish. Almost always I could find one and sometimes more than one but I was doing what I liked. As the years passed I got better at it and even here I manage some nice fish on a regular basis. Rainbows are harder for me to figure out than browns were but I'm getting better every season.
nevadanstig
Well-known member
I do have a few decent ones:
Have yet to top the 30" mark though, maybe this will be the year.
Have yet to top the 30" mark though, maybe this will be the year.