Infrequency

So I told you I'd lay out the past few weeks for you - here it is.

The weekend of the 17th and 18th my wife was away visiting some friends so I took the opportunity to spend a lot of time on the water. Originally, the plan was to chase trout somewhere but I just couldn't get the thought of a bunch of easy to catch sunfish out of my head, so I decided that if the panfish spots were busy, I'd move on to more prestigious fish (trout). To my surprise, there was pretty much no one anywhere. Beautiful weekend but the rain predictions kept the anglers away.

I went to a spot that is usually packed with people and watched for a minute. I saw two good sized (14-15-16") Largemouth chasing baby sunfish around and catching a few. I decided to start small to warm up and a few minutes in and I had a nice pumpkinseed. First of that species. The fishing was good and after a few more sunfish (bluegills and 'seeds from 4-8" in size) I decided to try for the bass and other large fish (pickerel) in the weeds off the side of where I had been fishing.

I tied on a large size 6 Clouser tied with rabbit strip for a belly and green hair for a back and on the first cast I caught a big fish... just not the fish I was aiming for. What I caught was an 11", hand sized bluegill that I had trouble getting my fingers around. Almost as good as a good sized bass.

Where are the pictures you say? The camera was in my truck but for fear that I'd lose my spot if someone came along and saw me walking back to the truck, I never moved. In total I caught 10 or 12 fish in a couple of hours and had just a great time. I went back over to the Urban Pond later that night but only fished half heartedly for the bluegill along the shore.

That week I went out once after trout on a very small heavily stocked stream and had two trout refuse my flies, no matter what I put on.


That leads me to the next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend. A Long weekend but packed full of busy things like family parties and yard work I had been putting off. My wife, as wonderful as she is, told me she wanted to see a very famous, legendary river and maybe even try her hand at fly fishing.

So on Monday late afternoon we headed over to this River. As we drove along it we realized just how many people would be out waiting for the evening hatch which has been written about in books on this river. We get to one spot that only has one angler at it and see fish rising. A couple of small ones and one larger one. We watched for a minute and as I headed down to the water, a rush of disappointment fell over my wife as she realized we'd really have to get down to the water to fish and she didn't want to do that.

I headed down, donning my waders, and started to hone in on where the fish were and what they were eating. I put on a size 16 caddis (what I thought was floating on the water and had seen emerging in a few places) and promptly had a few refusals before I found one or two small fish rising to emergers (I thought it was going after flies on the surface but later figured it out) between me and the bank. I turned and quietly did a fairly difficult upstream drift in a back flowing eddy. A few times I scared him by laying the line on the water right over his head but a couple of times I got it right.

Perfect drift, no drag, right over where he's rising, and he just isn't paying attention. What is going on? The fly is floating high, there is no drag, my leader isn't laying on the fly...

Oh well, I'll bring it in and make sure nothing is on the fly.

Three quick strips and it hit the fly... huh?!

So I soaked the fly so it'd drift right under the surface (fly box at the car, only dry flies in my pockets) and cast out about 5 or 6 feet. After it drifted up stream and began to show drag, I quickly stripped it back in and was rewarded with a SOLID rise ... and I promptly ripped the fly right out of the fishes mouth without setting the hook.

This happened two more times, and the last time my rod tip actually bent and I still didn't set the hook. At this point it was getting late and being an hour from home and needing to get ready for work the next day we called it and headed out.

It has been eating at me - gnawing at my stomach - that I haven't been able to take a trout since the first fish of '08. I've been dreaming, thinking about, and obsessing over catching another trout for the past two weeks and I just flat out haven't had the time to dedicate to really attacking them. I've fished maybe 2 hours total since the 18th and I'm going through withdrawl.

Which brings me to this weekend...

We're headed out to Central NY to do some sight seeing, Kayaking (rain be damned!), and maybe even a little fishing. Ok, definitely a little fishing... but just a little. I'll be fishing a small creek that is in what is probably a pretty popular state park chasing LL Salmon and lake run Browns that are in the creek after the Alewife bait fish which are spawning right now.

I tied up an experimental streamer to imitate the Alewife but am also going to bring a dry fly and nymph selection as well as other streamers. I'll be moving fast and changing flies until I figure out something that works. I won't have much time, but NEED to catch something.


Here is the fly, but I'm going to tie another one with more grey and white, less blue, and black bucktail or peacock hearl overwing. I may through in a touch of red just because I think all streamers should have some red in them.



Hook: Size 6 2x long 1x heavy streamer
Thread: 8/0 Black
Throat: Large clump white bucktail
Body: Large clump of Krystal Flash tied in around the throat, trimmed slightly longer than the bucktail
Under wing: White Bucktail
Wing: Small clump Grey Bucktail
Overwing: Bright Blue Bucktail

That is as it is there... I'll post the revised pattern tonight sometime