Fall Days

I was finally able to catch a small brown trout out of the eddy behind Powderbuzz this past Sunday morning and I thought it was a sign of a great fall day of fishing to follow.  The breakfast crowd must have found it a bit odd for me to place an order, go to my car, grab the fly rod and walk around to the side of the building for a few minutes.  I don't care.  I'm a fisherman.  And I am guessing you are too, that you do odd things at odd times and get odd looks for it as well.  Good.  That's why you are here.

I made a point of getting a least one more day on one of my favorite stretches of water before the end of the season.  Rain from Friday night had increased stream flow to a bit of an unmanageable level for this time of year, more reminiscent of the end of runoff in late June or mid July than the middle of Fall.  Somehow, the fish were both hard to see and extremely spooky at the same time while also being pretty picky about what fly they would take and what flies they would ignore.

 

Fishing wasn't as hot as it has been over the last month.  The day started with nymphing using a small bead head pheasant tail.  When I was able to see fish holding, my casts had to be very accurate as a cast a foot to one side or the other would not result in a strike.  Dry flies were totally ignored as they sailed past.  Based on some minimal early day success, only few fish were enough to justify a mid-day celebration / relaxation beer enjoyed while resting on the bank.

Later in the afternoon, the fishing got a little better and I even found a run where fish were rising to take emergers and / or small flies on the surface.  I was able to catch a few of those fish on an adams dry and a couple other nice, healthy cutty's that made me feel like it was a day well spent on the river.

Fall is definitely here.  Although the fishing is starting to slow down higher up, that just means we will all have to take advantage of lower elevation opportunities.  Maybe this weekend will be the beginning of targeting some brown trout with streamers.  We will have to see.  If this does end up being the last cutty of the year from this stream for me, I will be happy as it was one more nice, colorful, healthy fish added to the list of others caught there this year.  I love this creek and will be dreaming of it until next year.  Enjoy the season everyone.