This morning I had to scrape ice off my windshield! The daytime temperatures still reached the 70's though. With the wife out of town on business I had to go see what effect the first frost of the season had on the fishes. I decided to fish the headwaters of my favorite little trout stream, as I have been ignoring the brookies lately. I reached the stream by 5:45 and worked my way down.
I had a deep hole in mind, in which I previously scared up some large brookies. The elk hair caddis solicited a few strikes and landed a few fish immediately.
The one on the left was about average. The fish on the right measured 11 inches. He erupted out of the water to suck down the caddis. After a short fight, during which the fish darted back and forth, I set him on the grass for a quick photo. I then released him to fight another day. Just before the honey hole I cast randomly into a riffle with the intention of keeping my line out of the brush I had just blazed through. My fly sunk, disheveled and saturated. A quick swirl came across the shallow riffle and my line went taught.
This beast came from slack water into the riffle to munch my fly. After a quick photo I released him without measurement, but I estimate him to measure around 13 inches. He didn't put up much of a fight but he had little room to run. I continued on to the deep pool with high hopes, but I caught nothing there. I came out of the woods onto some campsites where I previously caught a few nice brookies. I observed the water from a distance, hoping to see some surface activity. Approximately size 20 BWO's were hatching, but I had none in my box. That can spell disaster but brookies are not the most intelligent fish. I felt fairly confident in the caddis patterns but I tied on a smaller one (from a 12-18).
I landed the fly snug to the bushes hanging into the water near the center of the photo. I saw a swirl and set the hook...prematurely. I felt some pressure on the line and saw a hefty brookie breach the surface. Unfortunately my line went limp and the trout swam away. He must have been at least 15 inches. Disappointed, I decided to hit one more pool upstream.
This guy came from that last pool. He put up a good fight, leading me to believe he was a big brookies. Nope. With the sun setting I decided to focus my attention on a nearby spring pond. On my way back to the car I snapped a quick picture of this little shelter with a mountain in the background. Kind of a cool pic.
With the sun setting I only took a few casts at the pond, but I managed around five or six average brookies and a few little bows. Overall it was a good evening of fishing. I caught around 15 brookies and probably eight bows.
Stay Tuned: I'll be tying lots of flies for sale in the next two weeks, minimizing fishing time, but I'm heading out towards Glacier for some hiking and alpine lake fishing soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment