Beating the Heat

Having finished a number of home repairs on my Friday off, and with the upcoming heat wave and the prospect of streams getting too hot to responsibly fish, I decided to make a quick early morning trip back to my local stream. Very early to beat the heat and to have the river to myself for a while on a weekend morning. Started fishing at 5:45 am with the sun still low in the sky. Unusually warm for an early morning, but the water was refreshingly cool. Started lower than my normal starting place to see some new water and found some nice runs. Double psycho prince, size 12 and 16. Had a couple doubles on briefly. About half in the 9 to 12" range. Sixty fish to hand by the time I got to my normal starting place at about 8:15 am. After that, it was dead, only five more fish. Clearly another early riser had jumped in at my normal starting place. I was off the river by 9 am, home before 11 am. My wife barely knew I'd been gone. That's a great way to spend a summer, Saturday morning.

Beaver Bump

I was looking through my old photos and realized it had been 10 years since I'd been fishing with Sarah, one of my daughters who had been a frequent companion in her younger years. So I invited her to join me for an evening on the local stream I had visited two weeks ago.

The water was quite a bit lower and the fish fewer and smaller (I think it likely this stretch was fished earlier in the day), but we still found enough to keep us entertained, with a few up to 12 inches.

Sarah soon recovered her fishing skills and was matching me fish for fish. 

A wonderful section of stream to fish, wide open, easy wading, no grass or trees like The Creek. Nothing to impede fishing except....a beaver? 

Sarah and I were fishing up a fast, shin deep riffle, side by side with her a little behind me when she said something about a rock or log I dislodged rolling downstream and hitting her leg. Then the log made a sound and started moving upstream. I looked to my left and a large, flat, brown shape came into my field of view, somewhat blurred by the waves on the surface of the water. My first thought was "Can a bullhead get that big?" followed by "Are there carp in this stream now?" but it was bigger than either of those could be. The identity of the "log" became clear as it slowly moved past me, not more than a foot from my leg, and its broad, flat tail came into view. Sarah had been bumped by a beaver, drifting downstream with the current. It moved up past me, slowly turned, and continued drifting downstream, never coming to the surface in our sight. 

After that excitement, we caught a few more and headed back to our starting point. The sun was not quite set, and being near the solstice, of course I had to fish until dark. I walked downstream to check out a couple new holes that had developed with the changes to the river over the winter while Sarah, content with her fishing experience for the day, waited in the car. It was a good choice for me. A couple nice new holes and water that clearly had not been fished earlier. I found two to three dozen in the short time before dark with quite a few in the 12 inch range. A great finish to a solstice celebration with a great fishing companion.

 

The Trout, the whole trout, and nothing but the trout

 Rick visited his home waters this week and I was able to visit The Creek (my home waters) this week as well.  While I didn't have the numbers or size that he did, I did have solitude and the intoxicating aroma of the mock orange and wild roses that filled the air in this incredibly special place.

A beautiful redband rainbow

I went Tuesday morning with Don and we traded off casting/catching.  He caught the first fish in the first hole after very few casts--we were off to a good start.  Grass encroachment was much greater than usual for this time of year, making casting challenging.  That coupled with branches led to several "power plays" with the unfortunate fisherman who got hung up having to watch helplessly while his partner catches fish while he fishes his fly out of the tree--or even worse has to tie on a new one resulting in a multiple-fish penalty!

The worst part of the day was breaking the tip of my 3-weight rod halfway through our day.  I either hit a branch with it or broke it trying to get a fly out of a branch.  I'm not sure which it was, but I do know it was sad.  We actually didn't keep count, just enjoyed the fish who so willingly came up to the fly.  We thanked them and released them to be caught at some future date.

Thursday afternoon I went with Garn and Sue, long-time fishing partners with whom I've enjoyed many hours streamside.  After Garn went to his wildlife camera to download images (got a cougar around midnight one night this week!) we separated and each of us went to a section of the creek to prospect for trout.

I had executed a repair on my broken 3-weight. I used my orthodontic skills and mended the break with a small length of 0.018 Elgiloy™️ wire, looped at each end to tightly encircle the rod on either side of the break, heat treated it to assure maximum springiness, and used Transbond XT™️ to cover the wire and encircle the rod to have a smooth transition around the repair and assure the line wouldn't hang up anywhere as it passed through that area.

The 3-weight worked great, the fish were cooperative, and while the grass and trees claimed more than an ordinary quantity of flies, it was a 92-fish day for me.  Lots of small ones, but they will have lots of grasshoppers to feast on this summer so should be much bigger by fall.  I'll have to do regular population surveys this summer to assess their growth rate . . .

Back to Trout...

As promised in my Memorial Day post, I set aside rubber worms and jig-head hooks and got out the psycho prince caddis green for the first outing of the year to my favorite local stream. Boots in the water about 17:15. Boots out of the water about 20:45. Had a pretty awesome evening between those two times...

The stream has changed quite a bit from last year in the section that I normally fish, mostly for the better. The first run is almost always good, and tonight was no exception. By the time I made it out of the pocket water dropping into the run, I had 52 fish to hand. Of the first 22 fish, only two were in the dink range of 6" or so, almost all were 9 to 11 inches with a couple pushing 12 inches. Fast water, light rod, lots of fun.

Above the first run, the stream has dug a bit of a channel rather than spreading out flat and shallow like it has been in past years, resulting in better water for fishing. Fish were everywhere they were supposed to be (which on this stream at this time of year means the biggest fish are often at the edge in water that barely covers them). Lots of bobber hits, but many more hits on the flies. Fished double psycho all evening, size 12 on top and 16 on bottom. Three flies chewed to destruction. A total of 123 trout to hand for the evening, and I'd estimate seventy percent were in the 9" to 11" range. 

All in all, I can't think of a better way to spend an evening!