EVENINGS ALONG THE STREAM (part 15)
| Sysadmin Note |
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| Part fourteen can be found here |
July 7th, the day itself was uneventful or so my journal has lead me to believe. Neil arrived around 7 P.M. geared up and joined me on the water at our normal meeting place above the house pond. This evening the breeze continued to play with the spinners, though some did make to the surface of the water and some of the trout were eating them. Like the other evening, the rises were very aggressive and splashy, but unlike the other evening there were no caddis visible on the surface of the water.
Furthermore, the stomach samples contained nothing but various stages of the PMD. The fishing was steady and we both took trout and all the stomach samples showed the same results, and after watching the insect on the water I saw that were falling and quickly going spent with no extra motions or actions and the wind, due to the direction, was having no effect on the insects on the surface of the water. The spinner fall was brief and was over by 8:10 p.m. and we discussed the possible reasons for the aggressive rises and our conclusions were that we just didn't know.
Because the spinner fall had ended we went down to the house pond to see if we could find some active trout. On the house pond we once again observed some very aggressive rise forms and we tried the spinner and midge combination that we had used before with success, but tonight the trout showed no interest in midge worms or midge pupas in the area that I was fishing. Neil had found a pod of fish further up in the house pond and had taken a few more trout on the PMD Parachute Spinner.
In the area that I was fishing the trout were moving randomly and feeding, I tried the spinner by itself and finally hooked a nice trout that ran me through a weedbed and jumping on the other side throwing the fly, soon I hooked another and he just flat broke me off.
After the last trout had broken me off, it was getting dark enough so that Neil had to break out his small light so I could see to tie on another fly. We continued to discuss the differences in the feeding behavior of the trout on this evening.
I selected a single size 18 Black & Olive banded Midge Pupa, using a 5X tippet, I greased the entire leader to within 20" of the imitation. I made a longish cast at the proper angle and proceeded to do a very slow hand twist retrieve to imitate a swimming midge pupa, suddenly there was a wake and a violent tug and the trout had once again broken me off on 5X! I watched as Neil landed a 13" Rainbow Trout with an odd shape head, which we photographed, by then it was 10:10 P.M. and another evening had drawn to a close.
Our evenings on the spring creek must now be placed on hold for the next several days as I will once again be engaged in guiding on the spring creeks of Paradise Valley and I would no doubt be out late, however I would not be the one doing the fishing.
Neil, of course will have many chances for an evening along the spring creek, but those are tales that only he can relate.
Neil and I discussed the aggressive charging take of the trout that evening and neither observations nor examination of the stomach samples allowed us to drawn any firm conclusions. We just couldn't figure it out!
Now, I know in today's world where everything has a solutions and I suspect that some will make up a response rather than saying------" I don't know". Well in this case we did not know the answer!
Not all fly fishing problems are solvable in the time that is allotted on the water. Thus fly fishing continues to remain ever mysterious and challenging. If we always knew the solutions soon the quest of trout fishing would lose its appeal.
| Sysadmin Note |
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| Part sixteen can be found here |