This was the single most perfect day of fishing I’ve had since resuming. I knew it was going to be good. I’d looked in the previous Wednesday and STSNBN was blown out, but there had been five days of no rain since then. I figured it would be clear but with the water level replenished a bit. This was exactly the case. The only downside was I didn’t drag my arse out of bed early enough, so didn’t get on the stream until late morning. As it turned out, this was a major waste of a nearly perfect day. Nevertheless I fished the entire length of the preserve, upstream and down. I didn’t start downstream until around 3 pm.
This was the day I finally truly discovered the killer bug. Which is sort of ironic as I had a grand total of two with me, one a (badly) self-tied killer bug and the other the Utah killer bug that came with James’s kids starter set from TenkaraBum. I’d only caught the first fish ever on a self-tied fly three days earlier at White Pine Hollow, chub on a woolly bugger. This was the first time I experienced fish after fish on my own fly.
I started out with black and olive woolly buggers, which at this point was my default fly. I had…okay results with cyprinids. But I decided I should experiment, so I put on my own killer bug. Whoah. Upstream of the big rock pool there’s a decent pool/run in a tight long bend. Wading into that and casting into the fairly fast flowing deep section, it was a fish every cast, all cyprinids. Literally a fish every cast. I continued all the way up and by the time I got back down to the start (stopping again at some of the pools) I’d caught 75 fish, all either creek chub or common shiners (though I couldn’t identify common shiners at the time). At 3 pm I pressed on downstream. Eventually my killer bug became unravelled and I switched to the Utah killer bug. This probably cost me my first trout on a self-tied fly.
It was getting into evening and I was still pressing downstream. I caught a bluegill (I think) at the big cliffs pool, but still no trout. I was beginning to worry about STSNBN. I caught the two wonderful browns the first time but hadn’t seen a trout since. It was lovely and catching tons of cyprinids is fun. But were the trout kind of a mirage?
It was getting well into sunset when I came to what I now call “trout pool” just upstream from the final bend pool. I caught some more chub then, finally, felt a trout on the line. It took the Utah killer bug in the fast water beneath the rock. It was small but I was elated.
I continued on down to the final bend pool. The Utah killer bug was still catching shiners and chub left and right. I cast across to the pocket upstream from the big rock and felt another powerful strike and thrum from a trout. Squeeeeee! This one was bigger.
Although it was late, I continued downstream past the boundary of the preserve. There was some nice water but I didn’t have time to fish it with darkness falling. There was nothing to indicate fishing wasn’t allowed on private property. Then again, there was no sign indicating an easement. The only signs just listed the preserve boundary.
It was rapidly getting dark, so I started hurrying back upstream. I stopped at “trout pool” and from the same spot I caught the first trout, I caught a third, this one the biggest of the day.
A perfect day with a perfect ending, three lovely wild brown trout. The status and promise of STSNBN confirmed. The final totals were 106 common shiners, 70 creek chub, 1 bluegill (I think), and 3 brown trout. 180 fish. Would have been more if I’d gotten on the water earlier. I had to beat it after that as full darkness was falling. There was a full moon. A huge heron flew past me on the way. It was awesome. It was complelely dark by the time I arrived back at the foot of the hill, so I got to try out my new LED hat. It worked great. So good that I now think the Streamlight is superfluous and can be left behind.
I drove home in the dark smelling of Deep Woods Off. Reminded me of times long ago driving home on bush roads from Red Rock Creek or Nose Creek or the upper Cutbank. As close to a perfect day as there’s been lately.