The final day of fishing, I decided to go back to the special regulation wild brown stream I’d fished twice earlier this year. The vegetation makes fishing all but impossible in the summer and I figured I was getting close to the last chance. I also wanted to see how the beadhead hotspot killer bug did with a population of exclusive wild browns.
It was amazing how the character of the place had changed with the plants now thigh to waist high. It was still eminently fishable, but not for much longer. In a lot of places there was no way to net the fish, but they were mostly small enough they could be lifted out. Apart from the efficacy of the killer bug, the main discovery of the day was that the upstream apparent stopping point actually wasn’t. You come to “End of State Land” signs, but they are just on one bank, and don’t apply to the stream itself. I went further upstream, and the signs continued on the far bank, indicating the stream was still on the state preserve. There were a couple of beauty pools I hadn’t fished before upstream.
There’s not a whole lot to report. I didn’t have time to fish the whole length of the stream segment, mainly because I was stalking and catching so many fish. I just fished from the top back to the car. In a nutshell: the beadhead hotspot killer bug was as deadly on the wild browns as on the stocker rainbows the previous day. Again, I didn’t catch everything, but I don’t think I cast to a single piece of holding water without attracting a strike. I fished a Tenkara Times Watershed 330, mostly fully extended (for what it’s worth, the zoom feature of this rod basically doesn’t work on the specimen I have – it doesn’t grip properly when closed down and the zoomed down part rattles around loose), with a Frenchie and beadhead killer bug tandem rig. Almost all the fish took the killer bug.
By the end of the day I’d landed 20 wild browns and a few chub and shiners. I still had plenty of stream left to fish but I had to call it at 4 pm to get back to Iowa City to collect James at a restaurant with his mother.
Beadhead hotspot killer bugs. Believe. They are just murder, and very simple and quick to tie.