Observations

Posted by philip on October 22, 2007

Watching the water is something I truly enjoy. Perched high on a rock mid stream focused on a seam filled with all manor of debris can be a very educational way to take a break from the casting and high sticking. Taking time out to watch the water can pay dividends too.

Such was the case yesterday on a Western Pa tailwater. Rusty and I started early at day break to find the river smoking and fog filling the valley. We found a nice spot with great flow and perfect depth for nymphing. I started with my huge golden stone by itself and Rusty started pitching some smaller nymphs that I can’t recall.

We fished hard for a good 2 hours with no fish between the two of us. I had gone from my stonefly to a #16 then #18 pheasant tail, then an egg pattern, and finally pitching streamers. Nothing was working. As the day progressed, we moved through different water, and not so much as a bump.

This is that time when you wonder what you’ve done wrong and all sorts of things start running through your head. Mind you, this river for some reason has been running extremely warm! In the 60’s to be exact (locals should know what river this was by now) and has been running at around 60-64 for the last few weeks. This is tolerable water for bows and browns though, and they should’ve been used to it by now. We even discussed moving to another stream nearby, but we knew it was too low to safely fish.

We pressed on, and just after lunch, were rewarded with the first fish of the day. A tiger trout I managed on a white streamer. We fished that section hard for a good hour until we decided to explore further down river. As we were walking down to a section that I wanted to fish, we stumbled on a beautiful hole. We decided to start pitching streamers there. As we did, my mind seemed to be playing tricks on me. I swore I saw several fish rise in the head of this pool, but aside from some midges and the occasional brown/tan caddis, nothing seemed to be hatching.

We fished for a while more until it became apparent that they were starting to take pretty heavily on top. Then we saw them. What looked to be black caddis, but upon closer inspection revealed that they weren’t. I’m no entomologist, so I have to research after the fact. I’ve seen plenty of black caddis in my day, and this most certainly wasn’t a black caddis. It’s wings were laid flat on it’s back, vs the “tent” wing configuration of a caddis. The other glaring difference was the absence of the signature caddis antennae.

Of course, after seeing this, I re-rigged my rod to fish dries, and my first obvious choice was a black caddis dry to match the black caddis cousins littering the water. My first few passes over fish produced nothing. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that if a fish that’s feeding regularly ignores a seemingly perfect imitation on a perfect drift on water that receives little pressure, that they’re taking something else.

That’s when I stopped to observe. It only took a few moments to realize that the takes were subtle and the dorsal was more evident than the head, so they were obviously taking emergers. Keeping with the black flies, I used a black soft hackle with a green abdomen (though the black flies had black abdomens) and sunk it just below the surface film. The first cast produced a strike by a bruiser who broke my 6x tippet cleanly. I would’ve liked to have seen that fish!

For the next hour or so, it was just fun. It embodied why we fly fish. That moment in time made the whole trip worth while. We didn’t “slay” fish by any means, but to figure it out was just as much fun. A later long cast into the head of a pool resulted in a beautiful rainbow breaking the surface gently with his back and a perfect hook up. The fish put on some acrobatics for us and I got him to the net.

I don’t know how many fish I missed, or how many I actually netted, but that window of opportunity made the whole trip worth while. I would’ve liked to have been into fish in the early morning, and what caused the fish to shut off is still a mystery. Maybe they wanted black nymphs earlier, a practice both Rusty and I avoid. Maybe it was the sauna like conditions of the river. Maybe the old “you can’t catch fish when there’s fog on the water” thing was true.

Regardless of reason, the fact is that they weren’t feeding early morning, then something happened that turned them on. More than likely it was the hatch, and they wouldn’t have fed all day if it didn’t happen. I’ll never know, and I’m fine with that. The few fish that I managed, and the breath taking scenery made it all worth while.

Philip