Brownies and Bloodroot

Anticipating chores and work over the weekend , I stole away for the day to hit one of my favorite little brownie streams. After loading up Adicus and my favorite little 2 wt., I headed down the road with the widows down, chillin to some good tunes, enjoying a beautiful spring afternoon. I always think I'm going somewhere else in the area, but I have a tendency to end up at this stream unexpectedly and unintentionally. My first option was already being debated in my mind before I even drove by it in favor of this gem.

After parking and suiting up, I headed up the gated forest road a bit before getting in the water. This is one of my favorite moments, the anticipation of what the stream has to give and the newness of warm air blowing downstream. From feeling the water with my hand, (forgot my therm.) temps seemed to drop just a little from the recent snow, it just felt a little cooler than Saturday. I got in the water about 1:30 and things were still a bit on the slow side.

The first few pools I worked I didn't get so much as a bump, even from a dink. This continued for a bit until I finally missed a small brown. In the next pool I was finally able to stick a feisty little brown that took my Thunderhead dry. After releasing him back into the creek after his moment of fame, I continued to work pocketwater and seams, occasionally getting a bump, but nothing really wanting to take either fly. I changed the dry down one size to a 14 and put on a soft hackle pheasant tail for the dropper(14). Adicus seems to get very restless when ever I'm tying on new flies or doing something else in which I'm not moving. I used to throw a stick to distract him, but after stepping on my other favorite 2 wt last year and breaking it, we don't do that anymore!


Changing flies seemed to be the ticket, things began to pick up significantly afterwards. Each pool I was moving through I was at least missing a fish if not catching one outright! Some of the larger pools were yielding nice sized browns willing to take a dry. In the seams, I was picking up fish on the dropper with one occasionally slashing at the dry. I missed two nice sized fish, one maybe 12" the other was at least a 14" brown that I pulled the dry right out of his mouth, I could have died. Of course he got a taste of the hook and it put him down.

We continued to move up through the large plunge pools and sections of fast water, picking up the occasional fish, along with the occasional tree or rhoddo bush. Nothing large, but nothing tiny either. Towards the end of the day, a 7" brookie even showed up to dignify the whole outing. (I really need to get on a rainbow stream soon!)

Spring is still trying to force it's way through the grayness of winter. There are still not that many wildflowers blooming yet, but I did get to see one of my early spring favorites, something that has come to signify the end of winter for me each year. The bloodroot! Sanguinaria canadensis is one of the first flowers to bloom in spring, is fairly common, and usually be found in wooded coves. I've seen it as far south as South Atlanta up into Virginia.

The only other flower of note I saw today was Spring Beauty, another early spring favorite! Are there any wildflowers that aren't a favorite? While a very common plant, it's something I always enjoy seeing, even in my yard. Overall it was another great day in early spring. I think I managed something like 20 or so fish, the biggest being maybe 10". All browns except for the lone brookie that came to play. I can't wait til next weekends camping trip to Fires Creek!