sjkirkpa
Well-known member
I had a unique experience the other weekend fishing for native brook trout and naturalized rainbows in a relatively large river in the western UP. The river was still high from the melt, but coming down and clear. Very fishable, finally. Weather was sunny and warmed to ~70. Water temps in the mid 50s.
Picked up a few decent size brookies (by our standards anyway) on olive streamers. Olive seemed to be the color of choice that day. Pattern didn't mean much. Well, I lost my streamer to some underwater hazard and tied on a version of a size 8 (6?) Bow River Bugger that I had in my box. It was a fly I picked up in some flyshop at some point. But it looked good. Turns out it was entirely un-weighted and I had a floating line, floating leader and couldn't find any split-shot in my sling pack. There was no way to get that thing beneath the surface - I think the deer hair was spun too tightly - looked nice, but floated like a balloon.
At any rate, I decided I needed to change to a streamer that doesn't think it's a dry fly. So, I just left the line in the water as I was digging out my streamer box and all of a sudden, I feel a tug and hear a splash! I missed the fish but saw it - a nice brook trout. So I cast out my 'dry streamer' again and wouldn't you know it, I got another hit and landed a nice brook trout. What the heck?
I should mention that this version of the Bow River Bugger had a few rubber legs that moved around nicely when I twitched the fly....that's your first clue....
I caught 2 more fish from the same run, using the same tactic but couldn't figure out why the fish were taking these things from the surface.
The answer came to me as I walked downstream a little bit and I saw my answer.... FROGS!!! I watched as I walked and numerous frogs jumped from the bank into the river and swam for shelter. They looked exactly like my olive Bow River Bugger when I twitched it on the surface! I think the brook trout were targeting these frogs who were out and about for one of the first times this spring.
Unfortunately, I did not have any of my bass /panfish flies with me to try out an 'official' frog pattern. This was a first for me and I'll have to add a frog pattern to my streamer box.
I thought it was an interesting anecdote and something to keep in mind for the future.
Picked up a few decent size brookies (by our standards anyway) on olive streamers. Olive seemed to be the color of choice that day. Pattern didn't mean much. Well, I lost my streamer to some underwater hazard and tied on a version of a size 8 (6?) Bow River Bugger that I had in my box. It was a fly I picked up in some flyshop at some point. But it looked good. Turns out it was entirely un-weighted and I had a floating line, floating leader and couldn't find any split-shot in my sling pack. There was no way to get that thing beneath the surface - I think the deer hair was spun too tightly - looked nice, but floated like a balloon.
At any rate, I decided I needed to change to a streamer that doesn't think it's a dry fly. So, I just left the line in the water as I was digging out my streamer box and all of a sudden, I feel a tug and hear a splash! I missed the fish but saw it - a nice brook trout. So I cast out my 'dry streamer' again and wouldn't you know it, I got another hit and landed a nice brook trout. What the heck?
I should mention that this version of the Bow River Bugger had a few rubber legs that moved around nicely when I twitched the fly....that's your first clue....
I caught 2 more fish from the same run, using the same tactic but couldn't figure out why the fish were taking these things from the surface.
The answer came to me as I walked downstream a little bit and I saw my answer.... FROGS!!! I watched as I walked and numerous frogs jumped from the bank into the river and swam for shelter. They looked exactly like my olive Bow River Bugger when I twitched it on the surface! I think the brook trout were targeting these frogs who were out and about for one of the first times this spring.
Unfortunately, I did not have any of my bass /panfish flies with me to try out an 'official' frog pattern. This was a first for me and I'll have to add a frog pattern to my streamer box.
I thought it was an interesting anecdote and something to keep in mind for the future.
