EVENINGS ALONG THE STREAM (part 23)
| Sysadmin Note |
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| Part twentytwo can be found here |
July 22nd, DePuy's Spring Creek, the morning was cool at 7:30 A.M. with partly cloudy skies and no wind. I sat on the breached dam watching the spring creek and its residents wake up and begin a new day. The whitetail deer were out grazing, the osprey had begun to soar over the waters of the creek looking for a healthy breakfast of fish. The great blue heron was stalking the shallows and the redwing black birds were foraging along the edges of the moss beds looking for insects trapped along the edges. The trout were still having coffee and reading the Fish Times News and were still tucked into their holding areas not feeding or actively moving around. I was waiting for my clients to arrive and the day to begin.
By 9 A.M. the clients had arrived and were geared up and ready to go, however the trout still were still not moving, and we joked that they were having that second cup of coffee. Finally the trout moved out and began to nymph. After checking the water I rigged the anglers up with a size 16 Beadhead Flashback Pheasant Tail Nymph with a size 16 Miracle Nymph dropped twelve inches behind, I placed the small strike indicator 32 inches above the first fly and gave instruction to the one angler who had fish the creek on many occasions.
I took the second angler, who was a very experienced Atlantic salmon angler but was fishing the spring creek for the first time, below the breached dam to an area where the riffle flattens out into a long glide, I explained what I want him to do and where I wanted him to fish and stepped back to observe. He missed the takes on the first two trout, but soon had a nice 14 inch brown in the net.
Then I showed him how to use a stomach pump and explained why the stomach samples would confirm that the imitations that he was using were the proper one, which turned out to be the case as the trout had PMD nymphs and midge Worms in the sample.
I left and went back upstream to check on the other angler. He was doing well and had caught two rainbows and asked me to spend most of my time with his friend. I returned to the angler below the breached dam and arrived just as he was releasing another trout.
He told me that he had broke off another trout and had to tie on a new tippet and flies. On the next cast I saw a large trout turn and spoke to angler and he tightened into the trout, which turned out to be a whopping 23½ inch rainbow trout that weight 4½ pounds. This trout jumped several times and make four runs in an attempt to escape the hook, but this angler was very experienced in handing large fish and I just watched as he deftly handle this large rainbow. It was a true joy to watch this fight, and finally I was able to slide the net under his trophy.
After a short rest he watched me revive the trout and it finally swam off. He was back fishing, and during the course of the morning he caught several more trout and had a great time. Finally we called a halt and went upstream to see how his friend was doing and to have some lunch.
We arrived in time to watch him hook a very nice 19 inch brown trout which I was able to net for him. He told us that he too had taken several trout during the morning on the nymph rig. By the time we finally set down to lunch it was 12:40 P.M. we noticed that the sky had darkened and that a storm was coming. We hurried through lunch and back on the water as the PMD hatch finally began around 1:15 P.M.
We enjoyed some delightful fishing, however it was short as the storm moved in and the rains came hard stopping the hatch. We waited, hoping the storm would pass but it was a series of storms and with storms came the wind and they decided that after such a wonderful morning they would stop for the day and try another time.
That proved to be the right choice as the storms continued till dark and there would be no evening fishing on this day. Still it was a great day as rainbows of that size are seldom caught on the spring creeks and a nineteen inch brown trout that is brightly colored is a fish to make any anglers day.
| Sysadmin Note |
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| Part twentyfour can be found here |