Wow! Not sure where to start. It’s been way too long since I’ve
posted last, and I promised a friend that I wouldn’t go as long any more. I’m
going to try to break down some of the trips that I’ve taken in the time since
I’ve posted last. There is just no way that I can do them all. I guess it’s
just like back in school when I would procrastinate on my home work, and then
try to catch up all at once, sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. I am relying on the pictures on my phone for
memory of order. So here it goes.
I chased Grannoms a couple of times this year. The first
time was right after a storm. There were rumors of Grannom caddis starting to
come off on the little J. I met up with a couple of friends with hopes of a
banner day. On the way to meet up with them I noticed that the stream, up above
where we were going to be, was blown out, so I figured we probably only had a few hours
before the rest of the stream was blown as well.
The night before this trip I decided to try out a new
nymphing rig. It’s a tight line rig with sighter material. Well…. It turns out the
sighter material that I got was not the right stuff, it was a much larger diameter
than what the formula called for. It ended up being a blessing, because the larger
material held just enough memory in the line that I could see every little
take. I’m gonna stick with this for my tight line nymphing for a while because
I immediately notice the difference.
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| Blue Quill & Chocolate Milk |
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| Small Stream |
So we got to the stream and I immediately got into fish. I
couldn't believe what a difference this new rig was making for me. But as time
went on the water began to rise higher. The decision was made that we were
going to try a different stream, one that does not blow out so easily. We hit the
road determined to find good water, and possibly hatches and rising fish. I’m a
sucker for rising fish.
When we got to the next stream it was chocolate milk. So off
we went again, to yet another stream and found yet another blow out. We decided
to stay at this one and give it a try. There were blue quills coming off all
over the place, but the water was just too muddy to bring up any fish. I fished
down stream for a little while then I gave up. On the way back to the vehicle I came
across an extremely small stream (maybe 3’ at its widest). I figured, what the
heck, why not throw a fly in it. First
cast wham! A 10” brown slams my fly (it may have been 9" but 10" sounds better). That was it for that small stream and I
had to be back home soon, so we went back to the vehicles, BS’ed for a while then
left.
The next trip for Grannoms turned out perfect. I got to the
stream a little early and the fish weren’t rising yet so I decided to start out
nymphing. Within minutes I had my first fish and it wasn’t long before I had
another. Then the fish stopped feeding underneath. Well….. they stopped taking
what I was offering anyway. About an hour later (and maybe 10 fly changes) I
started to see them rise. So without hesitation I switched to a dry and picked
up a fish just before I had to meet up with some friends.
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| Little J Brown |
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| Average Fish For the Day |
After my friends got there, they took me to a place on the
little J that I hadn’t been before. We fished hard for quite a few hours. The
hatch was on and off depending on the sun and the wind. Wind blows, hatching
stops, sun glows hatching stops, clouds and it’s on. Up to this point we were
having an O.K. day, but then, It started to rain, and we were having a hard
time getting the fish to take our flies. So we decided to catch up with the
other member of our fishing party. He was sitting in some frog water casting to
rising fish, and just cleaning up. The fish were taking spent caddis and doing
so with reckless abandon. He invited us to join him we did, and within
minutes we were taking them with a regular consistency. It got to the point
that we had to walk away because it was getting late. It was a good day.
