The trip started with one of the longest, most satisfying days of fishing of the year. Sny Magill is very heavily fished and equally heavily stocked, but it’s a long stream and so far in my experience it’s possible to find decent solitude, at least when you’re able to fish on weekdays, and especially in the upper reaches. I started at the uppermost parking lot, and fished the furthest upstream decent water, a stretch I’d fished several times in 2016. The first hookup was a bit of a surprise. Solid strike and a furious fight. I assumed it was a brown. Well, no.
When I got it in, it turned out to be my first mature sucker. It was even lip hooked on a black slump buster. I used to regard suckers as hardly even fish, and something to be kind of repulsed by. I don’t know why, in retrospect. A fish is a fish, and if it’ll take my fly I’ll gladly catch it. This critter fought like a crazed weasel. You mostly have to use bait on the bottom to get them, the internet tells me, except sometimes in spring when they’re spawning. Maybe that was it. I see swarms of suckers in some of the streams. Very occasionally you’ll see one express some limited interest in a fly, but this is the first that has firmly struck. Or hoovered.
After that, it was kind of a blur. The stream was in perfect condition, crystal clear and moderate water levels. It’s constantly stocked with rainbows and brookies and natural reproduction of the browns has taken hold, so much so that it’s no longer fingerling stocked with them, it’s all natural populations. I first fished up to where the stream becomes very small. This took me to about mid-day. Then I went back to the car and drove further downstream to water that was new to me. There are several parking lots. I parked just downstream from where North Cedar joins Sny Magill and fished downstream, past another parking lot and on, stopping only as I lost light. I caught trout steadily, using the Suntech GM Suikei Keiryu Special 39 (now rechristened the somewhat more manageable TenkaraBum Traveler), almost always at full length, and using a familiar tandem nymph setup of size 14 Frenchie (high) and Orange Beadhead Hotspot Killer Bug (low). Most of the fish took the killer bug, though a few hit the Frenchie (there’s a strong tendency for them to hit the low fly, so whatever gets put there wins).
When it got nearly too dark to fish, I bushwhacked to the road, which runs along and above this stream segment, separated by about 50-100 yards of woods. Once the working day ended people started showing up. I met one spin fisherman on the stream about an hour before I stopped. He waved and kept a respectful distance above me. He seemed to want to set up at the big pool I was fishing, so I left him to it and moved on and didn’t see him again. When I was walking back along the road several fishermen passed me. One stopped and asked if I’d seen his landing net. He’d slipped and fallen and hadn’t realized he lost it. Sorry, nope. When I got back to the parking lot I’d left my car in, there was a small conference going on. They greeted me. One asked how I’d done. Thirty-three trout, I said. That got a bunch of eyebrow arched looks exchanged like WELL AREN’T WE HIGH ‘N MIGHTY? Dudes. You asked. I guess I was supposed to say Purty good, purty good. Yerself?
I wasn’t really used to being out in the sun all day, so wasn’t religious about sun screen, so got roasted. But it felt good, fished like a machine from early morning until dusk. The final tally was 17 rainbows, 16 browns, 1 white sucker (I think), and one creek chub. It was strange to fish a stream where the trout vastly outnumber the creek chub.