The long Memorial day weekend was kicked off for me on
Friday at noon, as I was dispatched
on a mission to a handful of cemeteries to adorn
gravesites of fallen 29th Infantry Division soldiers with the flag of
remembrance by the division association. On my assignment was not only some of the
soldiers who perished during the D-day Invasion, but also WWI in France.
A poignant reminder of the purpose of the long holiday
weekend under my belt, I was nearby a mountain trout stream that had some
leftover stocked fish I hoped to encounter.
I had not fished this particular stream in about a decade, but I soon
found a couple deep holes under and upstream of a bridge and pull-off.
The water condition was still higher than normal flow with a
little murkiness / off-color. I was
fishing a heavier 3.0 bead headed #14 soft hackle with a orange hotspot collar along
with a size #16 and much lighter bead on
the dropper tag with a more subdued waltz worm type pattern I tied. The first take I was able to hook solidly was
a decent sized brownie that gave me a bit of a fight with some troublesome overhead
sycamore branches. The slight turbidity
allowed me use of heavier 4x tippet which helped and I soon had the fish in the
net. He was a chunky fat brown around 15
inches and I was off to a great start.
Shortly after, I was swinging downstream and I hit what felt
like a take but came away with both of my flies missing. I was not sure if it was a fish that I hot
too hard or a snag. I quickly rerigged
and stepped a little more upstream when I hooked into another decent brown and
had him in the net.
This guy was even more of a football and similarly took the
size 14 soft hackle on the point.
I ended that hole with another good-sized rainbow that got
off. I am still getting used to the soft
tip of this 3wt rod along with what a take looks like on my indicator, so the
poor hook was likely my issue. At least
I know there are more in there to catch at another time.
Making my way upstream I was hitting each decent hole in the
fast rapids and had on a smaller rainbow that I bet many had passed over
without trying to cast to. I added him
to my stringer and headed for another upstream deep hole. Already a super successful day.
This deep hole looked really good and I started casting
upstream working into the best areas.
About the third drift and in the circulating counter current I gave the
rod tip a slight twitch before the next cast and a small rainbow was hooked.
I decided to release this little guy due to his size and 3
fish already in the creel.
Fishing up into the deeper part I was greeted with another
brown trout that I added to the stringer.
I was surprised at the number of “leftovers” from the put and take area I
was coaxing into the net with nymphs. I
had on another decent rainbow but lost him due to a poor hook set again. The short fight was exciting nonetheless.
I worked upstream after a few hours, but there were no
additional deep holes though I did get a small take in a shallow riffle area
that I missed. Dropping back down I hooked
one final brown for my limit, as well as another rainbow that was
released.
Another limit of trout for the larder.
Back at the truck I realized somewhere I had lost the sole
of my homemade wading shoe. I guess the
glue let go on these old work boots. Oh well.
Back at home I cleaned the fish and fried up two in the cast
iron for a late supper.
Stomach content analysis revealed two hellgrammites, a green
caterpillar, a bee, and various smaller nymphs.
One larger brown was stuffed with yellow needles of some kind. Like short pine needles.
The following day I had a noon parade at Sharpsburg, so I decided
to check on nearby Antietam creek. The
river was still very turbid and high.
After a few casts I decided to try a smaller nearby mountain stream on
the way home.
This stream had also not been stocked in some time, and I had
no action until I got up to a very deep popular hole. I wasn’t having any luck initially until I
let my fly swing down and gave the soft hackle a little jiggle at the end of a
drift in the slack water. I was greeted
by a small rainbow.
A little later I had another god sized rainbow after a bit of
work, but he again pulled loose from my apparent pool hooking job. There were a few more fish in there but they
were not biting. I saw a few rises and
one small rainbow cleared the water by a few inches. I tried a CDC dry fly with a small
dropper. It was a good learning curve as
this was my first attempt at fishing the dry dropper. I was having a bit of trouble casting very far,
but the mayfly pattern I tied floated well, despite the bead headed nymph below. I had no takers with the exception of several
small chubs. Apparently, the hatch was
smaller midges and not the larger mayflies.
After a while I moved on and fished that stream for another
3 hours without any further action and headed home with my one fish.
Wrapping up a good fishing weekend I have caught 53 trout
this season on the flyrod and really enjoying the success. The spinning gear collects dust.
I tied up a few more nymphs on Saturday evening.
