A Futile Hunt

Among my many interests as a naturalist and conservationist are salamanders. They are very fascinating amphibians, and come in a wide variety of shapes and colors. My personal favorites are the mole salamanders. These are robust and strong, living subterranean lives. This group includes spotted salamanders. I typically find juveniles in the area around my home this time of year. Unfortunately, on a recent search, none turned up. It is still fascinating to find red back salamanders, centipedes, and wasps, but it is deeply concerning to compare this lack of spotted's with previous years. The decline has been dramatic.

Revenge

This evening I was about ready to go chase Native Brookies, but instead decided to go back to chase trout with streamers in hopes of breaking out of yesterday's skunk. Fortunately this was a good idea. In the first pool I had a chase and a strong take. The next led to a nip. Then finally, in a deep trough, I saw an active brown. Into the water went the streamer. Sure enough the fish hammered it and reluctantly came to hand. He had very clean, crisp gill plate markings.

The Mangled Streamer

Catch you later!

Far downstream I took a smaller brown in a long glide. The pocket water bellow this holds quite a few fish, and sure enough a rainbow chased and hit. I spotted a nice brown by the commotion he made in a small shallow pocket, and sure enough he chased the Barely Legal right to the shore. When he took his back was well out of the water, quite a sight. Enough to startle me and ruin the chances of a good hook set. I'll catch that fish on the next outing there. 

The Skunk

The last time I was skunked, I can't remember. But I was not expecting it today. This was not for lack of time or trying. I had plenty of time and a whole three miles to cover. I covered a mile with a nymph and egg rig, and the other two with big streamers. Had half of the followers took, and had I hooked half of those takers, and had a few popped off part way into the fight, I would have brought roughly twenty fish to hand today. I had a ridiculous amount of swirls, t-bones, and nips, and half hearted follows. I am surprised I didn't manage to hook anything.  I did see a few big salmon par (12-15 inches) rising in a big plunge pool, and should have tried a puffy dry fly on them. Next time. In one pool I had a big rainbow and a brown both taking swipes on a streamer (called Wally's Last Dance) two drifts in a row. It was excruciating.

Wally's Last Dance

Fly Fishing for Great Lakes Steelhead and Brown Trout www.reelactionfly...

A unique fishery I hope to visit in the future. Being a brown trout buff, I've been itching to try this type of fishing for ages. Those are some hog brownies!

Orange, Red, and Yellow

This time of year, there is a lot of orange, red, and yellow. The trees, the evening sky, the trout, and the flies used to catch those trout.

This evening I spent some time targeting small stream trout on dry flies and streamers. The water levels were up and leaves filled the current, making fly presentation a pain. A parachute pheasant tail only managed one dinky brown, but the yellow streamer I used was smashed left and right, taking some nice fish.
The amphibians and reptiles were out in force after the rain: turtles, frogs, salamanders, and the odd toad.
The sunset was a stunner, a perfect end to a good evening's outing.