Tough Native Brooky Fishing

Sounds strange, right? It happens know and then. Usually it is when the water conditions are very bad. Flood level or bone dry is the cut off point for catching natives, but then again not always. Today the water was in the best condition it has been in for a week, but I was hardly catching. One Brook trout, a few missed takes, and one lost fish in a half mile was pretty tough. A few chubs were caught. Why it was a tough day, I will never know. The one Brooky I did catch was a small assailant on an Edson Tiger, living in a brush jam in front of some culverts. Unfortunately it got hooked very close to the gills and was bleeding a bit. In the water it seemed to recover well, I hope it will make it to reproduce.

My kind of road.

My kind of stream

Rainy

This afternoon we were receiving a fresh, clean rain, and I decided to have a short farm pond session. I tied on a green and black leach. Third cast lucky, a bass materialized out of the grey and inhaled the fly in plane sight, and stayed visible throughout the fight. In seeing the take I startled and vocally said 'holy crap'. Some takes deserve such a reaction.

After that there were a couple of takes and a smaller fish, but the rain stopped and I left. Not normally how it works, is it? ; )

Oh, The Colors of Fall

This evening I had the urge to go out into the woods and tempt some wild trout with buck tails. I wasted no time in getting to the stream. It was getting a healthy dose of yellowed leaves, and the water was low and incredibly clear. I think the leaves make it appear even more transparent than usual.

The first fish to come to the Edson Tiger was a beautiful female Brooky, a perfect native. This was a special fish, above average in size for this stream. She was coated with small orange spots that were darker in the middle than on the outside, a trait common in this stream's natives. 

The catching continued, with two nice wild Brown Trout. Both took a yellow marabou streamer; the first coming from his post in from of a rock to smash the fly, the other speared out of an undercut. I missed plenty of takes in between as well. 

Farther upstream, in a long pool, a big wake chased my fly. The streamer was then ignored, so on went another. When that came up flat, I noticed a few small poppers in the box and decided they might do the trick. One went on, and sure enough a big brown came up to clobber it. I missed him twice! I'll get him next time. The next pool had a riser, and with a Red Humpy another fantastic native Brook Trout came to hand, this one a colored up male. He was displaying the orange- red spots much better then the female had. He was returned and I left the stream for the evening.

Connecticut Fly Angler in Maryland

This weekend I was visiting with my Auntie and Uncle in Maryland. I hadn't seen them for some time. I really enjoyed reconnecting with them and exploring their farm; and, of course, doing a bit of fly fishing. On Saturday Uncle and I, along with my brother, went to a local river, the Monocacy. It was a fairly cool, slow river: wide and shallow. It was not long before I was catching big Maryland Redbreast Sunfish on wet flies.

My first Maryland fish.

After I got tired of those, I tied on a little popper and caught a couple Smallmouth, a big chub, and some more chunky panfish. The chub was a heck of a surprise.

We called it a day and went to pizza hut. For the rest of the afternoon we sat and talked, or enjoyed the company of their two dogs (Rocky and Maxie) and "Cat".

Rocky, getting in my face.

As the evening wore on I explored the fields, and fished for small shiners and chubs in the tiny spring creek down the hill from the barn. I can't tell you how beautiful this area is. unfortunately, corporate America is slowly encroaching on the farmland, and in a strange scene on one side of the road would be a Walmart, on the other a rich green soy crop.  

The next morning I did some of the weirdest fishing I have ever done. The day before I had seen a very interesting looking canal in the middle of Fredrick. I immediately expected it would be loaded with carp. This morning I discoverd this to be true. There were Commons and a few Koi. There were also Largemouth Bass and Bluegills. These, unfortunately, were all I caught. I did have one of the large carp follow my sucker spawn pattern down, but I don't knot that it ate. I was plenty happy with the Bass and Bluegill. It was fun. I like doing weird stuff, and fly fishing and urban canal is fairly strange. I'll have to make another trip next year. I regret  not taking pictures of those carp....

Not my usual habitat.

Sipping Midges

This is not a post about trout. It is about Bass and pan fish. Today I went to the farm pond to find a heavy midge emergence of size 14 midges. I had to go home to get the right gear. When I got back, I took a nice bluegill. Then I got the daintiest of takes. It was a disturbance, then a slurp. None of the fish came above the surface, there was barely even a dimple. Silly me, I thought it was small. Nope, I was briefly hooked into a fair sized largemouth. With a similar take I got a smaller one. Fish never cease to amaze me.