Fishing with midges part 2
Early start
Midge caught brown
The only brown not to be caught on a midge pattern
ANother midge larvae caught brown
Hammer handle brown that couldn't resist a large streamer
I recently had the opportunity to spend a good amount of time on the water. A rare feat indeed...at least for me! The only problem with this opportunity is that it came on the heels of a good bit of rain that left many of our local inland trout streams high and stained. That left me with one really good option, and I was hoping that everyone else wasn't thinking the same thing. But when I arrived at the parking lot at 6:00am, and saw that I was the 5th car in the lineup, I was a little dissapointed. But when you can't pick and choose the best days to fish - you make the most of it!
The first 20 minutes or so of the morning was filled with a torrential down pour. So I hid back in the trees and tied up my rig as I waited out the rain. I was waiting to take a position at a pool that lay a good 150 yards downstream from the trestle, and away from the other fly fishermen who had taken positions at all the other well known holes and runs. The pool is a tricky spot to fish. It is made from a right angle in the stream were the main current slides over the top of another current that runs accross and underneath. To combat this tricky drift my friends and I have found that pulling the fly along - kind of like czech nymphing - allows you to control the drift and put the fly in front of fish. We use long sections of light tippet and a little extra weight under an indicator to get it done. As the fly sinks and starts to drift one way, we slowly pull the indicator and the fly the other way, working it into the zone. This is why more weight is often needed. We need the fly to not only get down fast, but stay in front of the fish in the "zone." And just as I described in my last post about fly fishing with midges, I put the weight about 3 inches from the fly. This worked really well because most of the fish - that held in the heart of the pool - where stationed on the bottom, feeding on small midge larvae. And because the fish werent very active, the take was often very light. Just a short stop or slight dip in the indicator was enough. And if you didn't manage your line well, you missed the fish.
Once the rain stopped and another fisherman, who stopped by to take a few casts left, I took up position and began working my #22 brown midge larvae to a pool filled with trout. This is the great thing about fishing a spring creek - the water is so clean and clear you can see the bottom, even in the deepest of pools. It did not take long and I had my first fish of the morning to hand, a beautiful wild brown trout. I stayed at this section for most of the morning changing flies ever so often and catching a few trout with those new flies. But the #22 brown midge was the fly I always went back to, and caught most of my fish with.
And as I explored just a bit downstream from the pool, I found another section that held a large number of trout. Most of them were on the small side - between 6-10" inches. But there were larger fish mixed in that would range in size from 11"-16" inches. And then just as I was getting ready to make a cast into the run, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was huge! At least for a small creek like this. It was a very large brown trout of about 22"-23" long. It had slid out from somewhere hidden and took up position on the far side of the run. I worked my fly to that fish for a little while but most of the smaller fish in the crystal clear run were a bit skittish, and made it hard to get a good drift on the big trout. I never did get the fish to even look at my fly, but I'll be back to try it again.
After a very succesful morning at the spring creek, I headed East to check out some other local trout water nearby. I knew the stream to the East would be high and stained with all the recent rain that we've had, but I really wanted to break out the big rod and streamers. I only had about an hour, so I got my 6 weight rigged and ready to go with a big black 4" inch lead eyed streamer. I worked the main current hard, but it wasn't until I started stripping through some back water near the bank did I start to get some follows. I worked my way upstream getting a few follows here and there, but not one fish made the grab - that is until I made my way to a favorite hole of ours. It was just below the hole in the riffle section that I recieved my first good pull, and then after another miss, I finally got a solid hook up that bent the 6 weight to the cork. It wasn't a big fish, but it put up a great fight in high water. I could see why it couldn't lay off the chance for a big meal, it was a good 14" inches long, but very thin - almost like a pike!
So that is how my day ended. I got to fish solo for the first time in a long time, and got into a bunch of fish. It would have been nice to have some friends for company, but sometimes you just need a day of fly fishing to yourself.
