New course preparation and conferences are killing the autumn, but James and I finally made it back out on a crisp November Saturday. I’m going to stop naming the streams we fish after a lot of thought (probably completely self-absorbed thought, as I doubt anyone actually reads this, but there is just enough indication that it might possibly be having negative effects that I think it’s time to get in line with most other fishing blogs). It was our first contact with reasonably cold weather fishing. The high was 51, but there was a biting wind that just didn’t let up. We had the stream to ourselves, but packed it in by mutual assent at 1 pm. It was an excellent few hours while it lasted, though.
The first order of business was figuring out what to wear. We didn’t figure it out all that well, which contributed to the early halt. We each had double hoodies/fleece over our normal t-shirts, and James fished with his hood up most of the time. We were fine, but lots of warm socks, probably long underwear, some solution for fishing gloves, probably toques, and some non-bulky upperwear need to be thought through. It’s not like it’s going to get warmer.
The first surprise was that the stream was high. Really high. Higher than I’ve ever seen it, even at my first visit in the spring. It was fairly clear, so I don’t really know what was going on. I was in Baltimore for the preceding week, and don’t know if there was heavy rain or what. Had we known, we might have taken a run at STSNBN – we haven’t been back there since the flow slowed to a trickle.
Anyway, we set up at the first upstream stocking pool, me with my Rhodo and James with his Nissin Fine Mode as usual. He had an olive #12 woolly bugger and I had a #14 hare and copper. The woolly bugger got no love at all in the swollen water, but the hare and copper hooked a rainbow before too long. Got it to the edge of the net and lost it, like so many others, when handlining (this was about a 50:50 day for losing/landing). I had one more decent strike which failed to set and we moved up to the tree-canopied pool. Once again, James got no action at all on the woolly bugger, but he’s awfully persistent. As of my last trip, I was batting 1.000 with the patterns I’d tied from Morgan Lyle’s “Simple Flies” book. I had two stonefly patterns in the box but forgot about them the last time. So one goal was to give them a decent shot this time. I tied the first, a Stewart Stone, on, and plunked it in. It’s basically an outsize killer kebari with a tail, a bunch of underweight, and a tapered body.
There enused a mini Stewart Stone Massacre. In short order I landed two rainbows and a brookie and had three others on the line. Huh. The roll continues.
We went up to the big pool, and were very exposed to the wind. It was both chilling us and blowing straight at us so making casting miserable. We each had a few hook-ups (James’s the only action he got all day with his woolly bugger) but didn’t land anything. After an early lunch we decided to head to our favourite pool in the woods and then call it a day.
On the approach to the pool in the upstream shallows (which under current conditions were actually nice and deep) I put on the other stonefly imitation, the Improved Montana Stone. Took about three casts to hook and land a small rainbow. 1.000, six patterns in. I don’t think this means I’ve arrived as a tier or anything. It just really reinforces the notion that if you have at least some sense of how to present a fly, it truly doesn’t matter all that much which fly it is. Some certainly seem to work better than others on a given day. But they pretty much all work.
I went back to a hare and copper in the pool proper and immediately caught another good sized rainbow. I could see around a dozen trout down near the bottom. They just weren’t coming up for streamers, so it was time to break James’s shutout. He’s gotten skilled with buggers (I hesitate to say “surprisingly,” but I still do a double take when I see just how efficient he’s gotten at it – the backcast still needs more patience, but he puts the fly where he wants to put it, often in situations without a lot of margin for error). He hadn’t really tried nymphing. So I brought him over and gave him my rod (couldn’t be bothered at this stage to tie a nymph to his), put him where I was standing, and commenced back seat driving.
Didn’t take long. Dropped the hare and copper, after taking “really slow” a bit literally started raising it. He couldn’t see or feel the takes but on the third cast when I shouted “SET IT SET IT!” he did and landed his first rainbow on a nymph. Two casts later, he caught his first brook trout lifetime. He’s now caught all three species of trout.
That felt like plenty of accomplishment for one day. We were perked up a bit in the shelter of the trees, but being in the car with the heat on sounded pretty good, too. So we called it. First brook trout and now the Brassie, Walt’s Worm, Peacock Herl Nymph, Hare and Copper, Stewart Stone, and Improved Montana Stone have all caught trout on the first trip out with each. Final totals were a rainbow and brookie for James, and four rainbows, a brookie, a smallmouth, and four shiners for me.