Rainy Day Browns

Cat and I got up early this morning and hit some of the Parkway before the tourons got out of the pancake houses. We had wanted to get up early enough to catch the sunrise, but alas, it was not to be. Didn't get up early enough to catch that. We had a pleasant morning together. I must say, the laurel and Catawba Rhododendron was insane, you definitely have to see it to believe it. We arrived back at the house around 10:30 and I had the rest of the day to fish!

After checking on a few things around the house, I got my gear together, rebuilt a couple of leaders, got the dog, and jumped into the truck. I had been waffling on where to go for the past day or so, I only get so much fishing gas these days, so I didn't Nat to waste it. At the last moment, the pull of big brownies and unexplored water got the best of me, so we headed back to the stream that was feature in Bustin Brownies. There was alot of water I didn't fish last time I was out there, so it needed to be looked at. Headin down the Interstate, it began to rain as I got closer to stream, but broke a few miles before I got there and held off for awhile while I was fishing. After parking, Adicus and I headed back down the road before getting on the water. On the way, we came across a pleasant patch of wild raspberries blooming.

You ever have one of those days where everything you do seems to become problematic. Today started off that way. I figure the first 15 fish I came into contact with popped off in the first few seconds, usually after popping off, my rig would fly into a tree or same laurel. When I finally did land a fish, if he took the dry, my dropper ended up tangled and knotted with the dry. It was a very frustrating day, I just wasn't on my game! The good news was that I had ample opportunities to actually catch some fish. As we continued up the stream, things began getting tighter, but I continued to catch fat little brownies in some surprisingly thin water. Most were taking a red and yellow stimulator, with a pheasant tail caddis emerger as the dropper. We got got in a decent thunderstorm that blew through before we got back to the truck, so we continued to fish through an intermittent light drizzle.

The stream continued to slip between the moss covered boulders and under low hanging trees. Decent pools were a little spread out, but any that were deep enough held trout, sometimes 2 or 3. I had one gill hooked fish, so needless to say, Adicus was thrilled to get a tasty brown! Many holes that looked nice were unfishable because of numerous blowdowns that crisscrossed the stream in many places, making wading difficult. Roll casts and bow and arrow casts were the rule today, although there were a decent number places to actually make a cast. Despite all this, quite a few nice brownies were brought to hand over about 5 hours and two or three rainstorms. The average fish was about 7", although there were a couple of nice fish caught.

I am starting to move this stream up in the rankings as possibly my best wild brown trout stream. Even fishing an length of about 2 miles, I continued to catch 7"-8" browns out of most holes that had some depth to them. Like last time, I made contact with a large brownie in the 14" range that took the dry and then proceeded to break off a my rig on a 5X leader. That was one mean fish, ans he was pissed when he realized he was hooked. Damn! Another big fish missed this year, how long is this going to continue? My largest fish was a little over ten inches and he was purty!

Adicus and I had a great day today. The sun broke out the last couple of hours we were there, but didn't make a difference in quantity or quality. While walking out along a very rutted and rocky 4WD trail, sunlight was pouring through the canopy in shafts illuminating the steam rising from the resent rains. Loved fishin in the rain and seeing it fall, although stream levels didn't really go up. I had intended to go smallie fishin today, but the giver was blown out today from the rains last night. Water levels didn't really go up, but the river turned muddy enough to plow. Plus, I'm wantin to get as much trout fishing in before water levels get too low and things start to get hot around here. Fishin for trout has been good to me this year, good enough that I've only gone after lm bass 3 or 4 times this year, plus Adicus is not a fan of the Gheenoe.Go Fish!!!