Wednesday, November 5, 2014

The Plunge Pool

Not to long ago I briefly fished a pool I had never had success in regardless of it's incredible fishiness. I realize, now having caught fish from it, how simple the solution was.

It is a pool on a nearby medium sized river, made up of four separate plunges into one cut out VERY deep trough. No gravel, just clean bedrock. It is essentially an extremely wide plunge pool. The amount of water coming down each fall is less the closer it is to the far bank. These are the important facts I did not know until recently: The upstream side of the pool is  undercut by about a foot in most places, more bellow each plunge (not including the largest). The trout sit in the cuts facing downstream. There is also always a nice foam bunch adjacent to the nearest plunge, and their are typically fish sitting inches from the surface underneath it.

This was very good information, as it impacted my fly selection greatly. For the foam patch fish I used a weightless hairs ear. It punched through the foam and sat just underneath. I was essentially dapping it. The takes (all of which I missed) were like a classic mayfly take.

The undercut fish needed something bulky. A bead head hair's ear soft hackle sufficed. It needed to be cast into the plunges, where it was pushed down and in front of the trouts noses. The current would eventually drag the line and cause the fly to jump out of the cut. The strike detection was just like upstream indicator- free nymphing. At times I would pull the fly out quickly and a trout would come out chasing it frantically.

It felt good to finally decipher this spot.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

An Excellent Day on Two Small Streams

This morning I rose early. It was time to get out for some election day wild trout. The conditions were perfect. It was a stunningly beautiful mid fall morning. Perfect. I decided to first seek out some larger native Brookies I found a week ago before fishing for wild Browns the rest of the day.

To my surprise the brookies were still just chasing each other around. I only saw on pair on a redd (I of course let them be). I tied on a hair's ear soft hackle and went to work. I landed one smaller male, then the big boy I was looking for. He proceeded to make a mess on me nice just cleaned coat. Ah, well, what can you expect when you fish during the spawn.




A bit downstream I took one more pretty little thing, then made the move to the Brown Trout water.

The same nymph techniques were in order on the bigger stream that I consider to be my home water. It was not long before a Mayfly Grande nymph was nailed by two successive jumping wilds, and then a holdover that acted like it was wild. I've caught him before, actually. 



I have no idea why the hook in the head thing happens so often. Maybe a missed strike?
The next thing to take the fly was a tree, so I changed to a mono nymph. It took one smaller fish but was just not getting down well enough, so I swapped it out for an Iso nymph. That one did the trick. In a pool just above a fallen tree, there was a strong take. I set the hook and the fight was on. This was a much better fish, in fact the best out of this stream this year. Bulked up and colorful, the perfect specimen. Of course there were plenty more to come.






I caught two more on the nymph before finding a long glide with some risers at the top. I put on a different spool with line more suitable for size 20 dries and proceeded to catch three of the four risers on an olive. The were quite nice browns, the last of the day.







I'm going to fit a new handle soon, this ones older then me and a pain to fish with.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Golden Trout

My latest pencil work:

Urban Angling

For whatever reason, I have always had a guilty attraction to urban water. I've fished mill ponds, drainage ditches, culverts, and canals for years. I've targeted such strange and unlikely fly rod species as eel, bullhead, and koi.

This evening was spent fishing dries and worm patterns on such urban water for Red Breast Sunfish and Chubs. Of course this time of year is not the best for urban angling, usually summer is prime. I had plenty of challenges to overcome: invasive thorn trees, posted spots, and garbage, just to name a few. In the end I did well.




Sunday, November 2, 2014

Just What I Needed


I finally had some time to kill this chilly and windy afternoon, so I jumped on the nearest Native brooky stream and tossed a yellow marabou wet into the swirling waters. With a thump this colorful little fellow was on, and he danced across the pool before reluctantly giving up.