Well today I headed east to fish two
different bodies of water. The first stream I would fish I have not
fished this stream in 15 years. I get and understand that all bodies
of water change all the time. I understand that rivers, streams, and
all other bodies of water face challenges from mother nature.
Mother
nature still wows me with her power and strength. As you can see in
the satellite photos the main river channel has changed and I know
the beavers who used to live there are not happy!
Lol The first photo is from 2006 and
the second is from 2019. I have been using aerial photos to find
fishing locations since good ole Terraserver.com came out in 1997.
Its an amazing tool. You can use Google Earth Pro and here is a hint
you can use the archived photos in the sliding bar to see the same
ground in the winter “when the leaves are mostly gone and that's
unless they are conifers and your gonna struggle”.
I use a Garmin 64sx and the Campsite
(Garmin program). I use Google Earth Pro to plot out points and them
upload them to my Garmin. This way I know how far I have gone and
when I have to do any type of mountaineering (minus the glaciers
lol) I have the ability to do so.
I want to talk about staying hydrated
while one is out there. I walk between 3-7 miles a trip and I cant
stress enough about drinking water while one is out there humping
around on their fave bodies of water.
If your urine is not clear my friend
your not drinking enough water period. If your not urinating to the
point its annoying your not drinking enough water. My back pack
which is an Osprey Atmos 35 has a compartment for a 70 oz water
bladder.
This also allows me to chase fish all
day without a hydration issue, No matter if its stripers in Maine,
Smallmouth in NY, carp in Ohio, or Steelhead around the Great Lakes
its always with me.
The first stream I fished was teaming
with life. For an example all the rocks had cased caddis all over
them. The stream also had a massive population of minnows and
darters this would stand to reason why historically a number 6 to 8
olive WoIly bugger works so darn well (ironically these are the same
buggers I steelhead fish with).
I choose to fish a number 16
swinging/dead drift nymph I developed for fishing broken water. What
I mean by broken water is its not flat and feature less there are
topographical features in the body of water bed that make the top of
the water ungulate. I have attached a photo so you can see what I am
talking about.
Below you can see a photo of said
nymph. I would see a catch rising from atop of the riffle and the
small cloud was about 2 to 4 feet in the air. The other thing I
noticed and they are a pleasure to watch are the cedar wax wings
picking these bugs off mid air.
These birds are so beautiful. I used to
light and cigar up and sit on the river bank and just watch them have
their very own bug buffet. I would return to my car later and find
these what I believe to be Cinnamon Caddis. They were all over my car
and I took a photo of one and attached it below.
Back to watching the Cedar waxwings and
I rigged up my rod. I was going to use my steelhead tactics which
means an ice fishing float, some split shot, and the gilled nymph I
spoke about earlier.
I used a 9 foot leader set up comprised
of 4 foot of 12 pound test mono, then 3 feet of 8 pound test mono,
and followed by 2 feet of 4 pound test mono all fluorocarbon. The
lead I placed 12” above the fly.
I would fan cast the first pool. I
worked into the meat of the pool allowing the lead and fly to pull
the fly through the pool. This is the same way I fish the Great Lakes
and I have done it for decades with great success.
Since the volume of water coming
through this small pool would have any fish on the bottom and not
suspended. I guess it was about 20 minutes into covering the pool
with no success then “WHAMMO” the scrappy fish would be a 12''
bow ( a nice hold over).
She was surprisingly not dark in color,
but her colors where in fact light. She took that in the corner of
her mouth. I corralled her into my catch and release net. I thanked
her and sent her on her way.
Still all the bugs where buzzing and
the I left the Cedar Waxwings having their fun.
I finished this first stretch of water
and walked back to the car. I drove about 3 miles down stream to the
next section. I saw a few folks hanging out at the bridge and humped
down stream about a mile before I would begin to fish.
I came across the same scene prolific
mayflies in the air and Cedar Waxwings getting their bug buffet on.
This time I looked down stream and saw small 6-9” trout clearing
12-18” out of the air eating bugs! I laughed out loud cause they
where jumping and colliding with one another. They acted like the
Disney movie Finding Nemo characters say “mine, mine, mine, mine”!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3e0EkvIEM
I fished all through the ledge pool and
all the rock structure I could find. I fished these pool on the river
right side, but saw it would be better fished on river left.
I scampered to the other side of the
river and swung my gilled nymph in the same manner I would steelhead
fishing. I was still about 20-30 feet from the spastic trout and they
stopped. The hatch was still there. I said to myself that's odd and
proceeded to swing my flies. I saw some thing, but I discounted it as
slabs of limestone.
Well my bobber when under with a loud
ker-plunk. Then all my line from my feet when out my rod tip. I
thought O shoot that's not a trout! Then it bull dogged me for a few
minutes perhaps then it came to hand! Yes how beautiful some type of
redhorse sucker. She was about 16” long and released unharmed once
I got the gilled nymph out of her mouth.
I would hook up with three more of
these and land two of them. I did not realize I was fishing at the
head of a pod of them as you can see from the photo. They are silver
in color but due to the color of water they looked yellow in the
water.
I did hook a trout, but quickly lost it
because of the sloppy hook set. I picked up out of the river and
found the road back my car.
I would take yet another drive and I
saw two vehicles parked at the bridge. I thought no two cars is to
many for me in this stretch, but lets take a look. I saw two fellow
bug rodders. I said hello to them and asked them how they where
doing. They said they had had not luck. I told them about the spot I
hooked a fish at.
I rolled onto the new smallmouth
waters. Now I knew better, but did I listen to myself “no”.
Should of brought my egg beater, but instead I took only my TiCr 6wt.
I found off the satellite photos the
first riffle and this is where I said I would hump up to and turn
around. This is a tributary to the Allegheny river and it looked
incredible when I took my bike ride from what I saw. This was my
first recon of the creek its self. Above the first riffle I saw it
teaming with smallmouth spawn.
The first 100 yards was like this about
the riffle, but after that it was void of life. I was a little
shocked I cant lie, but after I saw all the blackened stones from
being out of the water for long periods of time. I came to realize
just like the Vermilion River back west its does the same thing. The
river has sections of river that are a bare and dry all summer and
they as heavily discolored.
I continued up the stream and met some
folks at camp. They asked me a lot of fly fishing questions and
things. I am not a pro and tried to help them as much as I could.
After petting the doggo and answering their questions I pressed on.
The creek in this area above the swimming hole was all exposed
sandstone bottom with grooves in it and featureless! I saw no bait
nothing it was void of life in this section.
I hiked out of the creek valley about
1000 elevation to 1200 elevation onto a old railroad grade now bike
path. I humped back top the car and by this time I was more than
tired. I was well hydrated, but still beats you down. I always wear
long sleeves and pair of NorthFace convertible pants
https://www.thenorthface.com/shop/mens-paramount-trail-convertible-pants-nf0a2wla-c1
and an old Patagonia long sleeve
wicking t shirt.
Well beaten down I headed home with a
smile on my face from the spoils of the day.
