Spring Browns 2014

Yesterday I was glad to be able to get out and meet up with a few friends on a river for some spring brown trout fishing. The weather was beautiful, warm, sunny and there was lots of insect activity. I showed up earlier then my friends and after getting in the river upstream I worked my way down. I targeted a few shallow runs that had produced for me in the past and managed a few tugs but no hook ups. At this time I was using a bead head mirage back scud which has been a great producer in the past for me on this river. I had it rigged without an indicator and was just sort of tight line nymphing and swinging the fly at the end through runs and different pockets.

After working down there was a fair bit of shallow broken water with boulders leading to the next run which usually I would walk over. Since having a taste of competition fishing I have been forcing myself to fish odd and unlikely holding water to see if I could get a fish or two and hone my skills. About half way down the run I sent my nymph right beside a boulder and hooked a really nice fish that had been holding in the skinny water. After a brief fight I brought him to net, grabbed a few pictures and released him...apparently he was camera shy.

I then got into a nice run with lots of active feeding fish and started to get a few smaller guys nymphing through with the same pattern. Around this time my friends showed up and started fishing down...I usually do not get stuck in one place but for the next few hours I did not move more then 20 feet around this pool. It is a bit of a trough that holds lots of boulders and stone and ranges in depth from about 2-4ft along its length. At the end of this pool I could catch glimpses of larger fish at the bottom and while some looked like sucker I caught the occasional flash of what looked to be monster brown trout. At this time I put an indicator on, a technique I am not overly comfortable with in order to pick apart the water and hopefully coax a big brown to take an offering.

 

In the deeper parts of the pool mixed in with the browns were some decent sized suckers. This was not the fish I was targeting but I could not keep them off my line. I must have hooked and landed around 30 suckers trying to nymph out the browns in this pool. I eventually gave up and moved to dry flies to avoid hooking any more. The fish were rising all around and the surface action was intense but I had a hard time putting out what they were keying into. It seemed that later in the day it was crane flies and earlier small white duns. I would get a few blow ups on an offering, size 18 white parachute, griffiths gnats, elk and CDC etc and then they would get wise and follow it and reject. I have had great days on this river on the dry but today was not one of them.

I finished the day off down river at a deeper pool that runs for maybe 10-15 feet before a set of riffles. I could see monster fish in the 18-22" range rising and eating insects off the top but yet again after trying to match the hatch on dries I was defeated with refusals and no interest. I switched back over to an indicator rig with a bead head mirage back scud and picked apart the water for maybe half an hour without any success. I switched over to a caddis pupa pattern from the book Tail Water Flies and BOOM first drift through I hooked up with a fish larger then my first. I had him buttoned up for maybe 25 seconds before the small size 18 hook came loose for a long distance release...that was maddening to say the least.

All and all it was a great day and I learned and observed a lot. I flipped over some rocks to look at what was in the stream and noticed as always lots of sow bugs in sizes 12 to about 18, with the majority being around 14-16. Also saw lots of small dark nymphs and noted size and color for this time of year for later reference.


Tail Water Flies & The Caddis Pupa