dylar
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I've been trying to put together plans to fish with a couple of friends I haven't seen in a long time, but every time we get some dates firmed up, something pops up to derail the process. I had a buddy coming into town, and we were going to smash a series of local bluelines. Alas, a sick child put paid to our plans, and left me at loose ends. The Subaru was already loaded and ready to go, so I reconfigured for a long solo run to the north.
Like everywhere else along the Appalachian spine, my target stream valley has seen a ton of rain recently, and the water was high and stained when I arrived. The creek has been extensively channelized and artificially straightened, and in many stretches, it is completely walled in. Consequently, it's an absolute bear to wade in high water, a fact that slipped my mind when I decided to make the run. After a day of fighting that surging push of water, my quads and hammies are toast.
I saw the first rainbows spawning in mid-December. The browns, of course, had done their thing by Thanksgiving or so, but the rainbow spawn is a long, drawn out process, and will continue in this creek right into mid-April. It's a bit weird to me; the brown trout spawn is such a compact, discrete event. Once they start to move toward the gravel, the whole shebang is likely to be over in a week to ten days. The bows, on the other hand, just trickle onto the redds a handful at a time over the course of several months. I suspect it just goes to show how many strains of rainbow have gone into making hatchery bows (the rainbows, while wild, are descendents of relatively recent stocker heritage; they've only been in the creek for a little over 40 years.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that there are a lot of eggs in the system right now, especially with high water to scour them from the nests. There's a widespread perception that egg patterns are basically stocker specials, but when the natural are present in numbers, even wild fish can become quite fixated on them. I ran a pegged bead all day, with various large nymphs (or worm patterns) as my dropper. All of the stoppers were highly productive, but the bead outfished everything else by about a 3-1 margin. Numbers were high (150+) fish, no monsters, but plenty of solid fish in the mix, with a couple pushing the 20" mark.
I've heard many folks claim that trout only live in pretty places, but I'm here to tell you that just ain't so. Squalor and trout can, in fact, coexist.
Now, for some porn selections.
My original intention was to make it a day trip, head home and fish something local today. However, after the long drive and nine hours of tough wading on top of a 2:15 AM wake up call, I was not looking forward to a four hour drive home. Instead, I decided to give it an extra day, grabbed a room in the most roached-out motel you can imagine, and crossed my fingers that the rain forecast to move in overnight wouldn't blow the creek out.
The rain started falling around 2:30 this morning and kept up on and off all day. Fortunately, the extended period of high water has helped flush some of the silt from the system, so while the water pushed up substantially, it took a good minute for the stream to pick up more stain, allowing me to squeeze in a solid session before visibility dropped into the "unfishable" range.
Today is the "worm moon" (the last full moon of winter), and with the rising water worms were definitely on the menu. I fished several different worm patterns (chamois, squirmy, and the good ol' San Juan), and the fish hammered every single one until they fell apart. Like eggs, worms are often seen as 'stocker' flies, but when the water is pumping and dirtied up, very little will out fish one.
A little local color...
Eventually, the water stained up plenty and the main current seams became untenable as holding lies, forcing fish into the soft water along the banks. Streamer time, baby!
Alas, all good things come to an end, and around 3:30, the rain took a big jump in intensity, and within 15 minutes, the water was chocolate milk, I was soaked to the skin, and the bite shut down. It was time to head home anyway.
Cheers y'all!
Dylar
Like everywhere else along the Appalachian spine, my target stream valley has seen a ton of rain recently, and the water was high and stained when I arrived. The creek has been extensively channelized and artificially straightened, and in many stretches, it is completely walled in. Consequently, it's an absolute bear to wade in high water, a fact that slipped my mind when I decided to make the run. After a day of fighting that surging push of water, my quads and hammies are toast.
I saw the first rainbows spawning in mid-December. The browns, of course, had done their thing by Thanksgiving or so, but the rainbow spawn is a long, drawn out process, and will continue in this creek right into mid-April. It's a bit weird to me; the brown trout spawn is such a compact, discrete event. Once they start to move toward the gravel, the whole shebang is likely to be over in a week to ten days. The bows, on the other hand, just trickle onto the redds a handful at a time over the course of several months. I suspect it just goes to show how many strains of rainbow have gone into making hatchery bows (the rainbows, while wild, are descendents of relatively recent stocker heritage; they've only been in the creek for a little over 40 years.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that there are a lot of eggs in the system right now, especially with high water to scour them from the nests. There's a widespread perception that egg patterns are basically stocker specials, but when the natural are present in numbers, even wild fish can become quite fixated on them. I ran a pegged bead all day, with various large nymphs (or worm patterns) as my dropper. All of the stoppers were highly productive, but the bead outfished everything else by about a 3-1 margin. Numbers were high (150+) fish, no monsters, but plenty of solid fish in the mix, with a couple pushing the 20" mark.
I've heard many folks claim that trout only live in pretty places, but I'm here to tell you that just ain't so. Squalor and trout can, in fact, coexist.
Now, for some porn selections.
My original intention was to make it a day trip, head home and fish something local today. However, after the long drive and nine hours of tough wading on top of a 2:15 AM wake up call, I was not looking forward to a four hour drive home. Instead, I decided to give it an extra day, grabbed a room in the most roached-out motel you can imagine, and crossed my fingers that the rain forecast to move in overnight wouldn't blow the creek out.
The rain started falling around 2:30 this morning and kept up on and off all day. Fortunately, the extended period of high water has helped flush some of the silt from the system, so while the water pushed up substantially, it took a good minute for the stream to pick up more stain, allowing me to squeeze in a solid session before visibility dropped into the "unfishable" range.
Today is the "worm moon" (the last full moon of winter), and with the rising water worms were definitely on the menu. I fished several different worm patterns (chamois, squirmy, and the good ol' San Juan), and the fish hammered every single one until they fell apart. Like eggs, worms are often seen as 'stocker' flies, but when the water is pumping and dirtied up, very little will out fish one.
A little local color...
Eventually, the water stained up plenty and the main current seams became untenable as holding lies, forcing fish into the soft water along the banks. Streamer time, baby!
Alas, all good things come to an end, and around 3:30, the rain took a big jump in intensity, and within 15 minutes, the water was chocolate milk, I was soaked to the skin, and the bite shut down. It was time to head home anyway.
Cheers y'all!
Dylar
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