For the first full day of fishing from the cabin, I couldn’t resist heading back to STSNBN. It’s hard to explain its appeal, given that I can now routinely catch a dozen trout from stocker streams without much trouble yet have never caught more than three at STSNBN. I guess it’s a combination of low fishing pressure (I almost always see tracks and there’s the bait fishing going on, but I’ve never seen another angler on the stream), the chance to get away into something special, and the fact that the trout are challenging, but most of the time at least toss you something for your efforts. And now, of course, there is also the tantalizing possibility of truly huge brown trout. Anyway, back I went.
I fished #14 copper and sand killer bugs all the way down the stream on the GM 39. For the first time in a while I went upstream to start with, only as far as the huge bend pool. There I saw the first definite trout I’ve ever encountered upstream. Naturally I know this because I spooked it from a lie beside the incoming current and protected by a large rock. Chub more or less don’t spook, but the dark streak shooting downstream, sigh, was a brown.
The trout at STSNBN often tease you, and today was a great example. I’d flirted with a little brown in the starting pool, but never hooked it earlier this year. I finally did this time, only the second trout I’ve taken from this pool.
That seemed to get things off on a promising foot. I moved downstream, steadily catching chub and shiners. I didn’t get too far down when I caught another brown from a pool that had never previously held a trout (that I know of).
So things seemed set up pretty well. Two trout already and barely started, nowhere near the lower trouty stretch. STSNBN cuts you off at the knees every time, though. They’d turn out to be it for landed trout. Though not for trout action.
So I carried on, with some optimism. Then this happened: Last time I ended up with a monster brown attached to a 6X fluoro tippet. This time I was using 5X mono. I got down past main pool, and the 5X spool ran out. And it turned out I’d managed to bring nothing else but a guide spool of 6X fluoro. Which I put on. Wouldn’t it just be…something…if….
Wouldn’t it.
So, I caught dozens of chub and shiner, but the trouty stretch disappointed in late afternoon – I didn’t even see a trout. I did what is now the usual tactic, getting down to bottom pool and biding my time for dusk to head back up. Trout pool, where the monster had escaped, yielded nothing, nor did the nice pool above it. I had switched to a black woolly bugger now, hoping for biggish browns out feeding at nightfall. When I got to the tail of long pool, making the longest casts I could with the fully extended GM 39, I hooked a medium-large brown, played him to the net, and he breached and dropped the hook. This wasn’t redemption, but it wasn’t tragic. The tippet didn’t break, I didn’t lose a monster.
But STSNBN was ready to take care of that.
I got to cliff pool in near darkness. I’ve never caught a trout from this pool – it’s one of those that looks exquisite yet never really yields anything – though I’ve seen one at dusk before. I cast into the faster water near the head, and like that the rod bent double. This time, at least there wasn’t a prolonged preamble to let it sink in. There were a few awesomely heavy tugs, then the fish got turned and promptly snapped the tippet. The 6X fluoro tippet. I didn’t see the fish, but it was huge, as heavy a fish as I’ve ever felt through the rod.
This time I took it a bit more philosophically. It was just so perfect, come back with notions of atonement, get caught via my own haplessness with the same undergunned tippet, get firmly kicked in the face again. I actually smiled this time.
But oh man, will I be back.