Went out Sunday to do a little roamin' around in the woods. Been hot and sticky lately, and I needed to soak up some shade and cold water and get my head screwed back on after a week at the salt mines. I never expect too much from the fishing this time of year. But, if there's anywhere better to be on a sweltering summer day than way back in the woods knee-deep in a nice cold little creek, I don't know where that place is. Fish are just a bonus at that point.
I decided to go and hit a couple small nearby creeks in the national forest that I haven't fished in a couple years. Both of these are way, way off the beaten path, and don't get fished much. The first one is a really small obscure creek that takes some 4-wheeling and near-vertical bushwhacking and boulder-climbing to get to and fish, and gets overlooked even by the locals in an area with plenty of more accessible trout streams. As far as I know, it holds only small wild browns, never caught anything else there. I arrived just as day was breaking. Sorry for the crappy pics, but it was dark as a dungeon down in that gorge early in the morning.
Caught a few small browns, including one that should be in the running for the puniest brown ever caught on rod and reel. I have no idea how he got the fly in his mouth. I got ahold of one that looked to be about 11-12", a fine fish for this little creek. But he startled me when he hit, and I struck too hard and parted my 6x tippet, and left him with a decoration on his lip. He jumped twice after the line parted.
The streamside vegetation consisted mostly of dense rhododendrons and these lovely, fascinating stinging nettles
:
I reached a point where it was possible to climb back out of the creek to the jeep trail, so I decided to put some gravel under my tires and hit another creek or two.
On my way, I passed one of those tiny little branches that I've passed a hundred times and always wondered if it held a few little specks. The possibility was there, and I was in no hurry; so I decided to stop and find out this time instead of heading on past in route to somewhere else.
The conclusion: no specks. It was full of these little voracious funny-looking dace minners that would attack my fly in packs until they sunk it and drug it down to feast on it. I guess they done ate all the specks:
Decided to spend the afternoon on one of my favorite little creeks. It's another one that's way back at the end of a long pig-trail jeep road, and doesn't get fished much. I have always had a soft spot for this creek. It's just another small stream that's full of little rainbows and a few specks in the very headwaters, but I have a lot of good memories of this creek. It's beautiful scenery, full of little fish, and consists mostly of stretches of pocket water separated by long stretches of stair-step plunge pools. A lot of work climbing up the rocks, but there's just something I love about watching fish hit a fly at near eye-level.
The lil' rainbows were plentiful and ravenous.
These very fresh tracks on a sandbar let me know that I wasn't alone here. Considerably wider than my hand, and water still seeping back into them:
Stopped to admire a patch of yellow-fringed orchids. The butterflies were liking them, too:
Time for a wee drop o' the creature:
Continued on up the creek, catching a fish or two or three out of almost every hole. Must have caught 35-40, lost count early on. Nothing over 9" or so came to hand all day; but I didn't care. There for a couple of hours, I reached that magical place where nothing existed except for me, the running water, the woods, and the trout. For awhile, I was exactly where I wanted to be, and it was a good feeling.
After a couple hours, it began to grow dark, the wind started exposing the silver undersides of the leaves, and thunder rumbled ominously. When the first raindrops hit, I reluctantly climbed out of the creek and headed back down the trail to the truck, and back across the jeep trail to the highway and home. I can think of much worse ways to spend a summer Sunday.
I decided to go and hit a couple small nearby creeks in the national forest that I haven't fished in a couple years. Both of these are way, way off the beaten path, and don't get fished much. The first one is a really small obscure creek that takes some 4-wheeling and near-vertical bushwhacking and boulder-climbing to get to and fish, and gets overlooked even by the locals in an area with plenty of more accessible trout streams. As far as I know, it holds only small wild browns, never caught anything else there. I arrived just as day was breaking. Sorry for the crappy pics, but it was dark as a dungeon down in that gorge early in the morning.
Caught a few small browns, including one that should be in the running for the puniest brown ever caught on rod and reel. I have no idea how he got the fly in his mouth. I got ahold of one that looked to be about 11-12", a fine fish for this little creek. But he startled me when he hit, and I struck too hard and parted my 6x tippet, and left him with a decoration on his lip. He jumped twice after the line parted.
The streamside vegetation consisted mostly of dense rhododendrons and these lovely, fascinating stinging nettles
:
I reached a point where it was possible to climb back out of the creek to the jeep trail, so I decided to put some gravel under my tires and hit another creek or two.
On my way, I passed one of those tiny little branches that I've passed a hundred times and always wondered if it held a few little specks. The possibility was there, and I was in no hurry; so I decided to stop and find out this time instead of heading on past in route to somewhere else.
The conclusion: no specks. It was full of these little voracious funny-looking dace minners that would attack my fly in packs until they sunk it and drug it down to feast on it. I guess they done ate all the specks:
Decided to spend the afternoon on one of my favorite little creeks. It's another one that's way back at the end of a long pig-trail jeep road, and doesn't get fished much. I have always had a soft spot for this creek. It's just another small stream that's full of little rainbows and a few specks in the very headwaters, but I have a lot of good memories of this creek. It's beautiful scenery, full of little fish, and consists mostly of stretches of pocket water separated by long stretches of stair-step plunge pools. A lot of work climbing up the rocks, but there's just something I love about watching fish hit a fly at near eye-level.
The lil' rainbows were plentiful and ravenous.
These very fresh tracks on a sandbar let me know that I wasn't alone here. Considerably wider than my hand, and water still seeping back into them:
Stopped to admire a patch of yellow-fringed orchids. The butterflies were liking them, too:
Time for a wee drop o' the creature:
Continued on up the creek, catching a fish or two or three out of almost every hole. Must have caught 35-40, lost count early on. Nothing over 9" or so came to hand all day; but I didn't care. There for a couple of hours, I reached that magical place where nothing existed except for me, the running water, the woods, and the trout. For awhile, I was exactly where I wanted to be, and it was a good feeling.
After a couple hours, it began to grow dark, the wind started exposing the silver undersides of the leaves, and thunder rumbled ominously. When the first raindrops hit, I reluctantly climbed out of the creek and headed back down the trail to the truck, and back across the jeep trail to the highway and home. I can think of much worse ways to spend a summer Sunday.
