June 22nd Is a Good Day For Fishing.

June 22nd, each year, is a day that I won't ever forget. I decided to honor mom (It's been 4 years now... amazingly) by hitting my favorite stream and hiding in the woods for a while. It worked out well, in many regards. I won't post all of my photos, but a few of the highlights won't hurt.

First trout caught nymphing...

Compare it to the typical for this stream...

 

 

And a couple of mysterious surprises...

Just a few more to soak in...

More From The Mountain

 

 

  

 

  

  

  

 

Photos from Near Vermont

Finally off loading the P&S

 

  

 

 

 

I Guess That Girl In High School Was Right...

I really am a slacker. Or, at least, I have been as far as posting fishing reports and photos this year.  I've been out a lot, and quite honestly, to a lot different places than I had been at this point last year. Here is a little wrap up in photos of my season... and on that note, this may become a photo blog as there are entirely too many fishing blogs with writers who are actually competant and still manage to be funny and witty at the same time.

 

  

Even Wild Trout Can't Fix Some Things

I've been saying for the past year or year and a half that there isn't really much a day on a trout stream can't fix. Even not catching fish on a trout stream isn't that bad compared to, say, not catching fish while standing under a bridge next to some stinky garbage.

There are days, weeks even, where I can't stand the thought of driving an hour or more to find fish only to have them refuse to take anything I have in my fly box for 2 hours and then having to drive an hour home. I go fish the big river for bass to get my tug fix and its good.

This year has been different. The tug fix desire is there but fishing that big, expansive river from a muddy bank just isn't doing it for me. I am happy when I catch a dark colored bronzeback but what I desire this year is more to be in a place where everything stops, except for the bugs zipping around my head, and the fish that live in the waters I'm disturbing are brightly colored, healthy, and clean. This year, oddly enough, I haven't even really cared about the fishing. Discovering new places that are so beautiful you never want to leave them is much higher on my list.

Last night, I was shown one of those places. Its in a surprising location, being in relatively close proximity to everything, but still feels secluded. Its clear waters cascade over short steps into amber-green pools where you can see clear to the bottom. Bright yellow Stoneflies flutter around, mixed in with tan caddis and the odd mayfly to produce a mixture of quiet and natural music and art.

I started fishing the upper most, larger, deeper pools for the bigger fish while foulhooked worked the lower sections. I saw no flashes and no action, and decided to wander down towards him to see if he was doing anything. He said he had a few short strikes and a couple of hits on his indicator, and told me to step up to the plate with my dry to see if I could trick whatever was in there into taking a chunk of deer hair wrapped around a hook. First or second good drift in this tiny pool and I had a hit, miss, and hit again. This time I had it hooked, though not well enough as it dropped off at the bank. I could count this fish caught as I was at the leader, but the entire day was spent with barely more than the leader out of the tip guide, so maybe not. Thinking I blew the spot out I moved down to let it calm a bit and had no luck, so I hopped back to the top... again, with no luck. I sat for a minute, watched the water, and decided to try down low. Really working the water surgically and logically. As I hit the outer edge of a seam, a fish rose and missed. I quickly got the fly back in the seam and he rose and we connected. He was hooked well, and as I landed him he kept fighting - never really stopping long enough to get a good photo and barely long enough for me to get the hook out. I think FH managed to get a couple of photos of me and the fish but nothing that showed its beauty - spotted and long finned. A wild, 5" brook trout. My first brookie on the fly, and my first wild trout.

FH also landed a wild brown that day, on a dry fly no less. It was a good day for wild trout and the local crew.

That being said, even wild trout can't fix everything.

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz

It certainly is relieving after a stressfull week to go out, fish a spot that treated you well last year, and to catch fish a couple of weeks earlier. Not just any fish, but the biggest largemouth of your life (even though its not terribly impressive, it was a solid 2-3lbs). On a popper.

Sort of an odd angle but he was big enough for his teeth to take some skin off of my thumb.

I caught a few more largemouth, all fat, healthy, and strong. They were stuffed full of minnows that were being blown around the bay we were fishing.

At one point I had a largemouth come up out of a weed bed to grab my offering. He wasn't a brute but was decent, and I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to land him from the dock instead of walking back to dry land before trying to pick him up.

Wrong. I lost the butt section of my rod into the lake, ended up wrapped up in fly line and with a nasty tangled mess of a leader. I was like a clown.

Catching Fish in the Sun is Better Than Not In the Rain

The weather gods have smiled on us, and I've been fortunate enough to take advantage. This past weekend was beautiful. Saturday was warm, warm enough to bring the shallow parts of lakes up to spawning temperatures and to bring the minnows in shallow. Where the minnows stay, the bass will play.

I went out on Sunday for a very much needed escape from work. I went back to the place that had been pretty good for me already this year and saw what I like to see - bait busting the surface, swarms of V's ripping across the water, and the gah-loops of large mouthed fish taking things off the surface. It was noon and I was crazy enough to tie on the only small popper I brought with me. It was beat up, having been chomped on by many smallmouth the previous season, but still chugged along in the water just fine.

It was one of the very first casts of the day that a bluegill proved to me that sight fishing is a lot more fun than blind casting. He came up and slapped it once, either missing the fly or trying to stun it, and finally inhaled the thing after pushing a V any Esox would be proud of. My suspicions were confirmed - it wasn't just any bluegill in spawning, the big boys were here to play. This lake is known for a large population of small sunfish, but this spot that I fish is known to be the haven for the biggest, meanest bluegill in the water. It is.


While gently trying to work that popper out of the fishes mouth, the balsa splintered apart and out came the body, sans hook. Not wanting to damage the fish, I let him have the hook and tied on one of the only other poppers I had with me - a 1/0 bass popper. After a few short grabs of these slab fish with tiny mouths pulling the fly under water by its feathered tail, I got a big splashy hit. Thinking "Yes! Largemouth!" Only to then realize the runs straight across in front of me signified a slab-sided fish. But what slab sided fish would be able to fit that popper in its mouth?

Once the fish started running away from the monstrosity I was slapping down on the water, I figured it was time to switch to something smaller. Way smaller. It worked and several smaller fish came to hand. These are the most colored up ones - check out the nearly black one. He looks like a rock star.

The sun fell behind the trees and the wind died down, and I heard a massive explosion of water. Thinking some kids had just jumped in the lake (or thrown an M80 in), I stopped fishing long enough to see minnows exploding out of the water as something bigger cut through an apparent bait ball - a large one, close to 20ft in diameter.

Popper time again. Seeing larger fish roll on the surface out past where I could cast the fly, I tried to draw them in making loud pops and gurgles. It worked, and the prize fish of the day came to hand.