A lot of my fishing this week was devoted specifically to getting a brookie on a dry fly so I could knock down December and turn a three into a four, and yesterday I finally found some willing fish. Now I only have two months to go to say I have caught a salmonid on a dry at least once in a month, every month, for three years.
It really isn't a huge accomplishment, but it's kind of cool. There have been months where I pulled it off with very little time to spare, it isn't really easy to find rising fish in January, but it also isn't impossible when you know where to to look and how to present flies. I got my December dry fly fish yesterday by fishing a pool that clinched January for me this year. Like many winter days, it was a parachute Adams that got the job done.
I like the game you've made about the dry flies.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure I can manage that though. I need to find reliable natives...
But I've apparently found the secret to stocked rainbow trout. For now anyway.
https://cargocultfishing.blogspot.com/2017/12/trout-fishing-unabated.html
While I was out on a ride this morning before the snow, I saw a few brooks that I've ignored in the past, but now I think I want to check them out. Unfortunately once the roads are snowy, going by bicycle with a rod tube is sort of troublesome. I am really curious about the confluences of small brooks and the bigger river. These brooks dry out -- or did in 2016, less so this year. But maybe they are actually part of a hidden native population. One of the two trout I took in the spring seemed to me to be native, the other totally stocked:
https://flic.kr/p/TVhujE
https://flic.kr/p/TVhtVy
If true, that means there are some fish that made it through the 2016 drought. I can't stop thinking about this. But I haven't caught a brook char out of here since June.
It's harder to tell since they're dead. But to me the both look like they have hallmarks of a hatchery raised fish, which I'm glad to see as it pains me to see a wild CT brook trout dead.
DeleteI thought the brown one could be a holdover.
DeleteBlood sport. There was no saving that one. Sometimes that happens.
The bottom one? Like I said it's hard to tell, but his fins look very small. On a fish that size that indicates extremely fast growth rates, which just doesn't happen in CT freestone streams. The top one has a a short opurculum which is always indicative of a hatchery fish.
DeleteThat's useful observations--thanks.
DeleteWay to go Rowan. I love top water fishing with fly or plug. There is just something about the take that is exciting. Guess you will be fishing in the snow this week.
ReplyDeleteTie, fish, write and photo on...
With floating plugs and poppers it's definitely exciting.Dry fly fishing, to me, is more of a calming satisfying thing. It doesn't get my heart pumping anymore like it did when I started. When a trout comes up, takes the dry, turns down, and I set the hook, I can't help but smile just a little and say to myself: "yeah, this is one of the finer things in life".
DeleteI don't know how many months in a row it's been for me, but I do know I don't think I've taken one on the dry this month....better get going.
ReplyDeleteThe other day I managed to take a few near the surface on "spiders"
34 months is a hell of a record. Well done.
Often my first few casts with a spider or fuzzy nymph it doesn't quite break through the film... if a trout takes, I count it haha!
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