dylar
Well-known member
- Messages
- 215
- Reaction score
- 52
For the first time in more 30 years, I found myself with no obligations on Christmas Eve. Bad weather and some nagging injuries have mostly kept me off the water in December, and I've been stir crazy. I got up at 3:30 in the morning, and checked gauges in 3 states to find what I was looking for (a fresh spike of water, in case you're wondering). When I found it, I loaded up the Subaru for a fairly long run.
It turns out there's not a whole lot of traffic at 5 am on Christmas Eve, and I made great time. When I got there, I found the water reasonably but not unwadeably high, and stained up just the way I like it. Now, when I started fly fishing, all I did was fish streamers, and though I've branched out considerably since then, that big meat game is still in my blood. Even though the water had started to fall out a touch by the time I arrived (and, in my experience, fish mostly run bait on the rising side of the water spike), I started out throwing articulated streamers. I managed to move 3 or 4 real nice browns early, but couldn't get one to commit to the eat.
After the first 30 minutes or so, I wasn't even moving fish with the streamer, so I bounced to a different stretch of the stream and switched up my tactics. This was the first high water this particular drainage has seen since back before the spawn, and I suspected there were lot of spent or unfertilized eggs still in the gravel when the rain pushed through yesterday. I've started playing around with pegging a bead lately, and I found some beads at a craft store the other day that had a lot of the look of a spent trout egg, and I've been looking for a chance to try them on live opposition ever since. It turned out to be something of an inspired choice/proof that blind pigs find a truffle every now and again.
It was the last ride for my G3's, but fortunately, Santa brought me a new pair.
It doesn't look like much, but looks are deceiving.
The only downside to the bead or other egg imitations at this time of year is that, to a certain degree you are effectively choosing to target rainbow trout, which, despite their conversion into the universal fish by hatchery rearing, started out their history as specialist nest predators evolved to take advantage of the vast salmon runs of its native drainages. If there are meaningful numbers of eggs in the drift, bows can be totally target fixated on them. I got bored of taking pics of cookie cutter 11-14" bows after the first five or six, and I stopped counting 30 fish and two hours into the day. I LDR'ed a couple of bigger bows that looked to be in the 18-20" range. Hot fish in tight quarters. It is what it is.
Browns don't have the same suicidal inclinations when presented with an egg, but they're definitely not shy about eating it. The trick is getting it in front of one before a cockroach bow can slip in and steal the prize.
And every now and then, you run into a real one. I'm fascinated by the extremely variable appearance of introduced brown trout, even within a single stream. The smaller guys above look like totally different fish than this battle scarred old buck, yet they're all descendants of a single planting of fish done 25 or 30 years ago, and caught within 100 yards of each other.
Merry Christmas y'all!
Dylar
It turns out there's not a whole lot of traffic at 5 am on Christmas Eve, and I made great time. When I got there, I found the water reasonably but not unwadeably high, and stained up just the way I like it. Now, when I started fly fishing, all I did was fish streamers, and though I've branched out considerably since then, that big meat game is still in my blood. Even though the water had started to fall out a touch by the time I arrived (and, in my experience, fish mostly run bait on the rising side of the water spike), I started out throwing articulated streamers. I managed to move 3 or 4 real nice browns early, but couldn't get one to commit to the eat.
After the first 30 minutes or so, I wasn't even moving fish with the streamer, so I bounced to a different stretch of the stream and switched up my tactics. This was the first high water this particular drainage has seen since back before the spawn, and I suspected there were lot of spent or unfertilized eggs still in the gravel when the rain pushed through yesterday. I've started playing around with pegging a bead lately, and I found some beads at a craft store the other day that had a lot of the look of a spent trout egg, and I've been looking for a chance to try them on live opposition ever since. It turned out to be something of an inspired choice/proof that blind pigs find a truffle every now and again.
It was the last ride for my G3's, but fortunately, Santa brought me a new pair.
It doesn't look like much, but looks are deceiving.
The only downside to the bead or other egg imitations at this time of year is that, to a certain degree you are effectively choosing to target rainbow trout, which, despite their conversion into the universal fish by hatchery rearing, started out their history as specialist nest predators evolved to take advantage of the vast salmon runs of its native drainages. If there are meaningful numbers of eggs in the drift, bows can be totally target fixated on them. I got bored of taking pics of cookie cutter 11-14" bows after the first five or six, and I stopped counting 30 fish and two hours into the day. I LDR'ed a couple of bigger bows that looked to be in the 18-20" range. Hot fish in tight quarters. It is what it is.
Browns don't have the same suicidal inclinations when presented with an egg, but they're definitely not shy about eating it. The trick is getting it in front of one before a cockroach bow can slip in and steal the prize.
And every now and then, you run into a real one. I'm fascinated by the extremely variable appearance of introduced brown trout, even within a single stream. The smaller guys above look like totally different fish than this battle scarred old buck, yet they're all descendants of a single planting of fish done 25 or 30 years ago, and caught within 100 yards of each other.
Merry Christmas y'all!
Dylar
Last edited:
