Monday, July 16, 2012

Nymphing and Swinging Streamers

Date: July 12th

Weather: 91 degrees

Stream: Clear

Hatch: Minimal

Beer: The Dancing Man

            The trout are staying deep right now and reluctant to take a fly off the surface. I read something like 85% of a trout’s feeding is subsurface. That means dead drifting nymphs on an indicator rig. It’s an incredibly effective way for hooking trout and not unlike wormin’. I just love dry flys so much I never nymph if I have to.

            My nymph selection is lacking to say the least, mostly scuds and pheasant tail nymphs. The indicators I used were from my original fly rod way back when I started. I laugh at how naïve I was when I started; I could hardly cast on the river let alone dead drift a nymph. It started out alright; I had a few follows but nothing too big. However, my indicators were so old they broke apart after a few drifts and I was left with few options so I switched to an olive wooly bugger steamers.

             At a nice bend, after casting and stripping, I hooked a beautiful bass. At first I figured it was a massive trout, it made some huge runs and I had to run up and down the shoreline but it turned out to be a nice bass. On a fly rod a bass is an incredible catch. Your rod doubles over and the reel strips out line faster than you can reel it in. After the bass, it was bad luck after. I missed a few strikes on a dry fly at my secret spot to great disappointment.


            In last flickering rays of twilight, I finally hooked a nice ten inch trout on a large royal humpy, a dry fly I rarely use and tied on out of desperation more than anything else. My first drift resulted in a trout literally leaping a foot out the water. A few drifts later it was mine. Sometimes I feel so bad about keeping such a beautiful fish, but as a friend told me once, you should be willing to kill something if you want to eat meat. 

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