Every year around this time, when I’m lucky (lucky to make it this far into the summer with decent water), waters start to recede on all of my local favorite trout waters and this year has been no exception. Following a nice wet May and June which saw me all over the map knocking off great freestone streams, of late, most the places I’d really like to fish are just too low. I can definitely be classified as a total water snob. I really wont even consider fishing a stream when I don’t think its at or near optimal levels. At least not freestone streams. I always find it interesting that if you fish a typical freestone when the flows are right it can seem like it has a trout behind every rock but if you fish it when it’s just a little lower you can walk away saying you’ll never visit that place again. Every……and I mean EVERY… stream has its sweet spot. A water level that will have you catching a ton of fish no matter what. When you figure out what that is you never want to go back unless it’s there. If you know you know 😉.
So here I was last Thursday evening thinking about where to fish on Friday. I had taken Friday off some time ago. I figured that it was time to travel over to the central portion of the state where water level are still a lot better. Last year while fishing in that neck of the woods on a familiar stream that I’d been fishing for some 30 years now I tried a new section of water that I had never considered over the years. Trout after trout smashing my spinner as if they’d never seen one in their lives. I only had about 30 min left before I needed to start the long journey home but I don’t forget things like that and I smelled blood in the water on what could be if I took a dedicated trip to that location. With that said, there are risks involved with making a decision like that. That section was about 4 miles long with no real easy access or parking spots without permission. I knew the whole stretch was opening to fishing but I also knew that unless I wanted to knock on a door to park that I would need to ride my bike in and that’s a major commitment. Nobody wants to ride a bike 4 miles and then find bad fishing and have to ride back. That’s a major loss of fishing time. There are a lot of other consistently good stretches of streams in the area that Ive fished plenty over the years. Maybe I should choose something reliable since I’m driving so far. Eyyyy, what’s the fun in that! So with that I committed to a long stretch of water and to let the chips fall where they may.
I left my house at 3:00am and enjoyed a long dark drive as I always do. Traffic was a bit heavier than usual on the highway which was disappointing. The entire way over I was going over my plan of attack. Where I was going to park my truck, where I was going to ditch my bike. When I finally arrived I drove the whole stretch to re-familiarize myself with the area as I’ve barely ever seen it over the years. I found a good place for the bike and drove back upstream. When I made it to my parking spot I just thought to myself ‘Man, that’s a long stretch of water’. I fish fast and don’t mess around. But even this was going to be a big bite for me. If the creek was productive with excellent habitat throughout it was going to be a very long day and considering the humid 93 degree weather it could be problematic as I only had one 16 ounce bottle of water along.
I shoved off with the bike and 15 min later rolled into a little square of woods, locked it to a tree, and walked streamside. I gotta tell you, my first impression was that I was going to smash this creek.
It looked great and it looked like I hadn’t been fished in a long time (well thats what i hoped it looked like!). I quickly opened the bail on my still new and shiny Shimano Vanford, picked a likely looking spot where the swift run meets a soft eddy. It was as good a first casting spot as I could come up with. I cranked the bail closed and immediately saw the flash of a good fish but there was no tug at the end of the line. A clean miss. still…..I smirked as my optimism went through the roof on how the day was going to work out. Again, I smelled that same blood in the water that I’d smelled last year when I fished a small section upstream.
I plopped my spinner into a few other less likely looking spots to no avail before sending another cast slightly upstream from the first. I was quickly rewarded with a nice little 8” wild brown and the pattern was set. The fish were out and I hd a lot of water ahead of me. 3 other trout came from that same run including a nice 17” wild brown.
Even though it was still very early the heavy canopy over the stream was of huge benefit early on as the sky was pretty clear and the sun was racing upwards. I was picking off trout at a good clip and knew the bright sun could impact that.
It didn’t……when the sun crested the tree the fish just kept hitting. That habitat was excellent and things were working out great.
Fishing new water and having it go well is about as good a feeling as you could ask for.
Being that the action was so good and the habitat was so compact I wasn’t really making a lot of headway to the truck and thoughts of a horribly long outing crept into my mind. As I rounded a bend I was almost happy to see a pool that stretched as far as the eye could see. I don’t mess with long pools very much as they are usually rather unproductive. I make a few casts here and there but for the large part I just skip them all which is what I did here and that bit off a good 500-600 yards of real-estate. Shortly upstream, following another pile of trout, there was another huge pool that had a large group of mergansers working it. That pool I definitely skipped as I snuck around them to avoid scaring them upstream thus ruining the rest of a magical outing. Now I felt like I was back on track to making it to my truck in a reasonable time.
At around 11 am I caught trout number 100.
4 of them were 16” or over. That’s about the time the fishing actually got good 😉 As the sun rose high above the stream I really started to pound the trout. 2-3 fish were coming out of every likely looking spot and nice heavy fish at that.
The sun was just blistering on my back but wet wading 62 degree water helped me stay as cool as I could considering. At 12:45 I drank my last gulp of water and knew I had a ways to go. I was going to be one thirsty fisherman by the time I got back to the truck but I wasn’t going to speed my pace to get there. It was too much fun and the trout were out.
Over the next 3.5 hours I caught another 119 trout including 3 more fish over 16”.
I will admit to being very happy to see my truck which is often times a disappointment on a great action day. All I wanted was a drink and some lunch at that moment and I gulped down an ice cold water like I hadn’t drank in weeks. Lunch was equally as satisfying. It was far too hot to even entertain fishing longer so I called it a day with 219 trout to hand, 7 fish over 16” and one heck of a memory.
I drove downstream to retrieve my bike and then hit the road with the AC blasting me in the face the whole time. Another successful adventure in the books!
