Sunday, August 23, 2015

Wildflowers, Low Water, and a Big Turtle




It is late summer. The flowers are showing it. The rivers are being hurt by it. But in places the fishing rolls on, especially if you know what you are doing. Today I fished what is normally a sizeable river, now a small stream. Very low but plenty cool. I used a Black Gnat with a small PT dropper. I caught three rainbows of decent size. One leapt five times, a brilliant display. But my prize catch of the day was a snapping turtle. Handling reptiles is a tricky business, but I've been doing it since I was fast enough to catch them. With a little sweet talk even the meanest snakes and turtles can become like soft, fluffy kittens. Err... sort of. This one was not very well behaved and just the worst size to handle. 



Trout and turtle coexisting.

6 comments:

  1. The changing seasons are awesome. Low water creates good and bad situations and I know you have that figured out. Beautiful trout! I'm sure the snappers take advantage of low water. Nice trip.
    Tie, fish, write and photo on...

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is the name of those purple flowers. They are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure, but I'm sure Mark at Fishing small streams would know. He seems to know his wild flowers.

      Delete
  3. Cool shot of those wild flowers with the river in the background, but all I can say is, wow, the salmon is low! It's night and day from the last time I've seen it, but I'm glad it's still cool enough to hold some trout. Do you think the brook trout have left the salmon to seek thermal refuge in the tribs or the other way around?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's actually the spill at a dam very far away from the Salmon. I think the river has been at almost record low levels. On The 20th and 21st it was flowing at 4.5 cfs. It's low when it's at 40 cfs.

      Delete