So we made it out as planned. Forecast of sunny and 60F, breezy in the morning and breezier (15-20 mph) in the afternoon, which was how it turned out. We got on the road at around 7.15, grabbed “breakfast” from the Grim Arches on the way, and got to the stream around 8.45. I was expecting company, as it was the first warm Saturday of the year, and I wasn’t disappointed. A couple in their 20s arrived as we were gearing up and started getting out spin rods. I suggested we head in different directions and that they take their pick of upstream or down. First they deferred to us since we were here first, I said we really, honestly had no preference, so they picked upstream. Then when we got down onto the stream, they followed us downstream. James looked at me with an emerging 8 year old HUH? face. Sssh, s’okay, I said. Maybe they don’t know which way is which, because they’ve never been before. Or something.
Down in the valley, there was still quite a bit of granular snow on the ground, and the stream was decorated with big blocks of melting ice. The water level was quite high, but not as high as in December.
We set up at the first downstream pool. I’d caught four here on December 22, and it looked nice, but it was mostly fish-free. The stream in general isn’t holding many fish at this point. James fished the run at the head and I tried the slow deep rear part. I got no action, not a hint. I ran through a Hare and Copper and the new Pigsticker, but there weren’t any fish to be interested. James was fishing an olive Woolly Bugger and after a while reported hooking up with a trout, but he didn’t see it again. Before we left, I had a go at the head. I tied on a ridiculous Girdle Bug that I’d tied following Morgan Lyle’s Simple Flies. I’ve had 100% luck with all the patterns tied directly from this book so far – caught a trout on the first trip out with each. I figured this would put an end to that. But no – I dropped the abomination into the most likely deep water under a foam edge. It went in like a hand grenade, as it’s a whole pile of .030 lead wound around a 4X nymph hook. Gently pulled it up and a rainbow attacked it. Huh.
We headed off downstream, giving most of the pools a miss because we weren’t confident there was much left in them and we were sort of working our way back into things. We eventually ran into the young couple. They hadn’t caught anything and were giving up. Their footprints were all over the banks on the bottom pools. We set up at the deep lower pool. We didn’t see much for a while, then I tied on a Hare and Copper and got it down to the bottom, and quickly caught three more rainbow. This was the first day ever that I didn’t lose a single fish when landing. I didn’t handline on any of my fish. I was fishing my Suntech Suikei GM 39 at 390 for most of the day. It’s long enough that I could get the fish into range of my foldable Shimano net by extending the rod behind me, and I scooped them all up without incident (and more quickly than when handlining, which has got to help with survivability).
James had a go, but you had to wade out a bit and cast back along a fallen tree to the good lie, and it was kind of borderline, so we called it pretty quickly and headed upstream. I told him I was certain he’d get one there.
Crossing the stream on our way, we encountered another party, a dad with his young daughter, both with spin rods, coming back most likely from the big pool at the top. When they got to the edge of the higher than usual stream crossing the track, without preamble he picked the little girl up and slung her over his shoulder. I got the 8-year-old HUH-face again and had to signal be-cool. James figured the girl was around his age, maybe a year younger. I have to say she put up with being toted along slung backwards over a shoulder with a sort of regal dignity.
We got to the first good upstream stocking pool and I caught a rainbow on my first cast with a Hare and Copper.
I backed off and let James have a go in the same lie. He hooked up on his first cast. He couldn’t get the rod back far enough to bring it in to the net, and he didn’t want to try netting with his new net for fear of losing the fish, so I handlined it and got it into his new net.
We went down to the less accessible pool just downstream (now very accessible, with all of the vegetation removed) and James caught another.
That ended the trout action for the day, but it was just fine, especially considering how sparsely populated the stream is. People have pulled out a lot of overwintering trout.
We went up to our favourite pool (messed up by a big submerged tree in the December floods) and found two men with western fly rigs. I want to say “older gents” but, sigh, they probably weren’t that much older than me. They were pleasant, said they hadn’t had much luck. I never know whether it’s bad etiquette to tell people what pattern you’re having success with. I usually do, because if the tables were turned I think I’d be glad of the information, but nobody seems much interested. Nobody we encountered seemed to have caught any fish.
The big pool at the top had lots and lots of footprints around it. We crossed over and cast into it a bit, but didn’t see anything. We had most of the afternoon left, so we trekked upstream to the furthest point I’ve been. I wanted to show it to James, and it was pretty with all the melting snow and ice. The last sign of a trout was at the head of the big beaver dam pool. I had a couple of trial Frenchie tyings. I got a strike on one, but the fish was only on for a few seconds. There wasn’t much upstream, though at one of the nicest pools, James worked the deep tail and caught a couple of creek chub, the only ones we saw all day.
We made it to the lovely little cliff pools, which so far has been my furthest turnaround point (sort of worried about trespassing, though there are no posted signs of any kind to suggest anyone minds). We had a good view of some sort of relatively large mustelid, which swam down toward us, then got out and scampered around some large blocks of ice, then up the bank. I’m going to guess it was a long-tailed weasel, but I’m no expert. It was medium brown, body about a foot long, with a long tail.
On the way back a bat was whirring around catching insects at the beaver dam pool. We paused while wading and it came in really close as it circled around. There were very few bugs and we didn’t need to use any repellant, but there were local dense clouds of some kind of midges hatching and I assume those are what it was dining on.
We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day. A little bit of winter softness probably, but the wet snow made it much more of a slog than usual. Anyway, mission accomplished in all respects, couldn’t have asked for a nicer February 27. James’s final totals were 2 rainbow, 1 shiner, and 2 creek chub. I caught 6 rainbow and 6 shiner.