River Test (carrier) report with pictures (2/16/08)
Hi Guys an gals,
Bit of a late report because I was traveling. I got to fish the test area on Valentines weekend. This was the same stretch we fished in December with less than satisfactory results. Last time I landed one 21" brown and lost a nice greyling.
This time things were a little better. Rachel didn't come, so that gave me a little more latitude on how to fish and how much to move around. The water was crowded because there was an angling society filling all of the other day tickets. They also bought some tickets to fish the pond. There were 12 people on the streams (3 in our group) plus 4 guys on the lake and a bunch of kids running around. Fortunately some of the 12 were more interested in taking pictures than fishing, and the cold kept them inside for lunch longer. It was right around freezing temps in the morning, but with no wind and plenty of sun it was quite nice. The morning started off similar to last time. The stretch I fished first required I walk with my back to the sun, so it cast my shadow right onto the stream. I planned to slowly walk to the bottom end of the beat and fish up where my shadow would be well downstream of the fish, but I had company. One of the angling society followed behind me by 50 yd of so and fished all of the spooked fish, making them more spooky. This was a fortunate accident though as it forced me to walk further downstream than I realized there was water last time. Turns out there was another 1/4 mile of stream that we were allowed to fish. I found a nice jack dam where the water made a big pool below that was whitewater but only 2-3' deep. I caught this little guy and another brown about the same size (~9"):
The water was pretty cold so they didn't have their brightest colors. You can see a bit of the orange/red tip on the dorsal and the electric blue in the back and sides. I worked my way around and found this greyling downstream of the other guys:
It was a nice thick fish of about 12-13" or so. Not the biggest greyling by any means, but a nice fish and about typical of the fish in the stream. In October this was the common size of the fish we caught. Then, we only caught 2 that were like the first. Most of the rest were this size (12-14") with a few in the 15-19" range. This ones colors came out pretty well.
After lunch I fished another stretch that I hadn't fished before. I was able to put the sun in my face and my shadow behind me. That made all the difference in the world since I could now get close to the water. This was the after lunch stretch of water:
You can see that this water wasn't very big. As I said in the title, we are fishing a carrier of the test. The carrier is below showing the full volume of water. What I'm fishing here is about 2/3 of the total carrier as it is split in this section. The water in the picture is about 20-25' wide or so. It varies from 12" deep around the shore and goes down to 24-30" deep in the deeper stretches. This particular stretch had a nice riffle/run/pool setup. You can see the runs about every 40 yd or so. They all held fish. I lost three greyling in the two runs you see there that were in the 15"+ range. All three were loosely hooked and I was horsing them in a little too much. I did pick a couple more greyling and this nice brown. I didn't measure him against my rod, but he was in the 17-18" range and had nice spots. Not a wild fish, but certainly has been in the stream a little while.
All told for the day I got a half dozen greyling and a couple trout. Not a spectacular day, but a good one to be out. I had company all day from the natives:
The stream is nice to fish and the scenery is different from PA.
In this picture you can see the full size of the carrier we were fishing. This is looking upstream from a small concrete dam. The water in moving quite a bit faster than the picture lets on. It is a solid 50' wide, 1-3' deep, and moving well. It has pretty even flow here and would be an ideal pool for a dry fly in May.
The fly of the day was a #16 pink scud with black wire rib, small black head, and a little bit of pearl krystal flash sheet cut for the back. Every fish I hooked was on that fly except for the little brownie. He ate a #14 creme czech nymph with an orange thorax and dark brown head. I was fishing a new rod that I had just built. It was 10' and rated for a 4/5 wt. In measures out with an ERN of 3.5 and an AA in the high 60's. It fishes perfect with a 5 wt line for what I was doing and it was super soft on 7x tippet. I didn't fish any indicators all day, just 2 or 3 nymphs, no weight or at most 1 #4 split shot, and light tippet. The rod was sensitive enough to pick up the lightest hits. I think I have a new nymph rod.
Thanks,
Rick
post edited by casts_by_fly - 2008/02/26 18:07:51