What a Painful Day...

In more ways than one. I targeted sea run trout as I planned, spending enough time on the river to see the tide come and go start going. There was a riffle at the bottom of one pool. Then there wasn't. A few hours later, it was back again. I didn't move any salt flavored brown trout, which is what I was expecting to happen anyway, but I did have a few sucker takes and saw this beaver:

Suddenly and without warning, my upper back and neck developed the worst cramp I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I had to lay down for a while. But eventually I got back up and started pounding the water with a size 6 Ausable Ugly. I figured it might take a sucker, a bass, a trout, a carp, a shad, who knows what, it's just a good all purpose pattern. I spotted what I thought was a decent carp. I cast ahead of him and let the fly sink. Up came the fish and chomped the fly. Clearly not a carp. The fish that jumped a moment later was the biggest god damned smallmouth I have ever seen. The stat record is 7 lbs 12 oz. This big girl was probably a bit bigger then that. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was just to good to be true. And of course it was, so the fish popped off right before I was about to grab it. I was crushed, dejected, and angry. What did I do to deserve that? All I could do was keep fishing. I caught that fishes son, then went to a pond nearby that I hadn't fished in about two years and caught a pumpkinseed bluegill hybrid thing.

The river was clearly no longer going to fish well, so I cut my losses and went to my carp spot. First cast, nice 'gill. Next cast, big mamma carp comes and sucks in my white sucker spawn pattern. I was in for a heck of a fight, this was one of the old fish of the pond. You know, the ones that are so fat and lazy they can barely move or be moved? Well at least that's what they look like. They can go! This one didn't get into my backing, but when I tried to move it I just couldn't when I finally started making headway the fly came unbuttoned. WHAT DID I DO? Whyyyyyyyyyy!?!?!?!?

 It has generally been my experiance that when I have a string of lost big fish, something really spectacular is coming. This isn't it, at least I hope not:

Panfish Over Carp

Today was a bit to windy for sight fishing, at least for my tastes, so I did some dapping for bluegills and crappie. I saw some carp now and then, but feeding was clearly not on their agendas. I used some dries and some nymphs for the panfish, and it was just plain, old fashioned fun. Could have done it with a pole and meal worms and had just as much fun, maybe more. Tomorrow: my first ever attempt to really target sea run brown trout. Wish me luck!

Dry Fly Day

It's that time of year. Bugs are out. The water is getting warm. Time to float flies over wild trout. Today was warm enough that I was comfortable wet wading. There were caddis, mayflies, and midges FRICKIN EVERYWHERE!
I don't often find consistently rising brookies in these types of small streams, usually just some sporadic rises, but I saw this guy come up at least ten times in the same spot. He was a bit picky too. He refused a bomber and an elk hair caddis before finally taking an ant.

*I'm going to try to incorporate more videos in this blog, some may be really cool, some may have crappy editing. It's going to be a work in progress, I hope you all enjoy it though.

I didn't use one subsurface fly today. What a feeling! Two streams, tons (about 15 in total) of gorgeous little natives, and not one shiver. Terrific.

I have Friday off, and I plan to do an early sea run brown trip. Hopefully there will be some other species around too, maybe shad or bass (smallmouth or largemouth, maybe even stripers). I have a commitment that will take up all of Saturday, but Sunday I may either go for sea runs again or do some small stream wild brown dry fly fishing. 

Muck

I did a bit of carping today. I had a very brief window while fish were cruising through the flats. I stopped to watch one fish when I noticed the my line was moving. I set into what was clearly a foul hooked fish. I let the line go slack and fortunately the fish came off. To avoid the skunk I ended up catching some redbreast sunfish out of a rather disgusting little spot. It was short sleeve weather today!

Crafty Bottom Feeders

No,  not my personal favorites the carp. Catfish. Specifically black bullheads. Bullheads are not actually named for the body color, but for the color of their barbels. These ones have black barbels, therefore they are black bullheads despite the yellows and browns of the body. I forget what day this outing was, but it wasn't today. I went out late in the day to tempt these bottom feeders with clouser minnows. Interestingly, few of the fish I caught were actually hooked. They had just clamped down on that fly and refused to let go. They did the same thing to my thumb. As small as these fish are the can clamp down on your fingers and WILL NOT let go. Unless you offer them their freedom.