Early start

My Fall salmon fishing actually started early.  While I normally don't bother fishing the lower section of my favorite river until about September, cold nights and mild weather pushed the water temps below 70 towards the end of August.  I kept a close eye on the water temps, and once it dropped below 65 overnight, I headed down at sunrise to my favorite run.  I'd cranked out a bunch of streamers the weeks before, and was ready to go.  For me, early salmon usually means a tight, dry-line presentation with an unweighted streamer.  The streamer will stay just below the surface film with the right speed, and this can mean devastatingly aggressive hits from fresh Atlantics that usually break the surface when they take.  I tied a marabou ghost on with excitement - I think I was shaking a little.  I was so excited to be doing what I love to do.  The time had finally come to start my Fall fishing extravaganza, and it couldn't have come any sooner.
I started out doing the traditional 45 degree cast downstream, followed by a swing, and then a pause at the end before stripping line in.  My first cast, I paused for a few extra seconds to soak in the joys of being on the water.  The very next cast, right as the fly started to straighten out after the swing, a boil followed by a tug.  GAME ON!!  The fish hit fast and hard, and barely even needed a hookset.  I tightened up on it and got it to the reel quickly.  Jump after jump, my excitement turned into nervousness.....this was my first Atlantic of the year, after all.  Luckily, I managed to net the fish.

Fresh from Champlain!

 
 The date was August 25th, the earliest I've landed a Fall salmon on my home water, pretty sweet!  On top of that,I had the whole river to myself(or at least as far as I could see)

After changing streamers and various other things like line angles, speed and depth, I decided to nymph a deeper slot in front of me that has been very good to me in the past.  I grabbed my 5 wt which was already rigged with nymphs.  The water was low and clear, so instead of an indicator I opted to just go by feel.  After a couple of well-placed slow drifts, I noticed my line stop for a just a moment.  Usually this turns out to be bottom, but a hookset always confirms.  This time though, NOT bottom!  The normal steady hard pull of bottom was replaced with violent headshakes by a big salmon.  It didn't take long for it to take to the air and start somersaulting. A long and fun fight it was, but I had won.  I netted the beauty, snapped a picture and sent it back on its way.  A Master Class salmon my first time out...not bad!

A fresh, 25" Atlantic

By 9 A.M, the sun was out and the water was already approaching 68.  I decided to leave the fish be until the cooler weather came.  Unfortunately, things only got hotter!  The water didn't drop below 70 for a few weeks, but in between then, I got out to the NEK and fished with my buddy Kenny, who knows the area probably better than anyone.  They'd gotten a run of fish after rain, and they were ready and willing. 

We almost had the river to ourselves besides a few other anglers.  I spent the weekend at his place, and we put a ton of time in on the water.  We ended up finding a pool of salmon with some true beasts roaming around.  A few males were already kyped out, and the females were FAT!  I started things off with a bang and had one chase down and inhale a white bunny!

Not the biggest in the pool, but definitely the most aggressive!

 

 

Kenny and I were constantly switching it up, trying to figure out the most productive flies.  The fish were both line shy, and splitshot shy!  It got to the point where I was watching the fish spook from a BB sized splitshot, or a gold bead-headed nymph.  We had to go micro shots with flies 16 and smaller to get takes.  I remember having one big female move about 5 feet to suck in an emerger.  She took off like a rocket and popped off before I could say a word!

We landed many fish that weekend, but none of the monsters that were patrolling the pools.  They don't get that big for being stupid!

One of many that Kenny landed, but this one in particular took a size 20 midge!

It was an awesome weekend, and I couldn't have asked for any better.  I can't wait to do it again next year!

Here a brown, there a brown, everywhere a big brown.

We got a few days of rain last week, and I watched the water levels closely on some of my rivers I knew had big, but spooky browns.  The water level spiked, and then started to drop quickly.  I knew it wouldn't be as high as I wanted it to be, but also knew the rain and cold nights were going to get the water temps where they needed to be.

Since my buddy Jerry was going to be in town, I asked if he wanted to join for a Saturday trip to explore some new water and he was pumped to go.  It had been a while since we went out on some trout water together, and he said he wanted to try fly fishing.  I remember the only time he'd tried fly fishing.   It was with me, casting to a salmon in shallow water, trying to get the fly to swing near it to provoke an aggressive reaction.  He just couldn't get the right swing, and handed the rod to me to have me show him what to do.  After he tried for 20 minutes to cast to this fish, I made one cast, let the line swing...and watched the salmon move a few feet and grab my fly.  He was dumbfounded, and I think it put him off fly fishing because of it.  Many people are overwhelmed by everything that goes into fly fishing, but I think Jerry knew he was in good hands, so I set him up with an extra 5 wt rod and reed I have.

We left early Sat, and got to a spot on the river where I'd spotted some seriously big browns before.  The water was back to being quite low, and very clear.  I was worried.  It was an overcast day, and was supposed to rain off and on, so I had high hopes of active fish.

Sure enough, the first pool we stopped at was holding more than one big brown.  Jerry couldn't believe it.  This river was all wild fish, no stocking whatsoever.  We stopped at the pool and watched 2 browns lazily feeding in the middle of the water column.  When it comes to big browns, my go-to flies are streamers, especially for ones in this river system.  I tied on a large, tungsten cone-headed crystal bugger and made a cast in some fast water above the deep pool the fish were cruising around in.  It was a deep, undercut rock structure that we couldn't see into.  I had a feeling something was lurking in the depths.  Sure enough, after the bugger began to swing in the current, and I stripped it...I could see a fish following it.  Jerry was speechless.  He was on the top of a bank looking in the water and had no idea where the fish came from. I did the same thing, this time letting the fly get deeper, and travel further downstream, right by a huge undercut.  Jerry went ballistic, "OH MY GOD!!"  Right as he said that, I felt a small tug.  I set the hook, but no dice.  He was panicking, saying it was a monster, almost twice as big as the already big browns we spotted when we first got there (And these were 18-20" browns)  My heart sank...and I knew that big guy had felt my hook.  He was now a lost cause, at least for now....

We headed downstream to some nice looking, deep water.  I made the mistake of only drifting by a log jam a few times, and when I got closer, spooked a 20" brown out from underneath it.  Yep, figures.

I began to help Jerry with his cast, showing and telling him the basics.  How to hold the rod, what to do with his hands, wrist, elbow, and other hand.  He picked up quickly, but struggled with keeping his wrist straight, causing some pretty nasty loops and tangles.  His problem was he was completely extending his arm out from his body for just a 25' cast.  He had the form and stance to do a 75' cast, so I told him to tuck his elbow and arm closer in to himself, and use his elbow as his pivot point, and to keep his elbow moving in a parallel line to the ground.  Immediately, his loops looked much better, and he was able to get out 35' of line easily.  I set him up with a streamer like mine, just a different color.  I showed him what to do to swing a fly through a run, and when to start retrieving it.  His second cast, he let it swing to a dead stop, and then started to retrieve. This was followed by a "woah!!"  A nice healthy rainbow had grabbed the bugger.  This was his very first fish on a fly rod, how awesome is that?  We somehow both left our phones in my car, which was a bummer.  He continued to fish the same run, getting another rainbow of the same size, and then losing something that seemed to be a bit bigger.  I worked a slower pool while he practiced his casting, swinging and stripping.  He was hooked on it, and would have done it for hours if I hadn't said we should move.  Since the water ahead of us wasn't too great (I was familiar with this stretch) I thought it best we pack up, drive elsewhere and then just explore.  We did that, a few times throughout the day, and it was just amazing.

Jerry was just blown away by the clarity and beauty of this river.  We were walking by and fishing holes that were over 10 deep where we could see the bottom.

We found some amazing log jams, and pockets of water that were holding BIG fish.  I had a few grabs from big browns hiding under log jams, but couldn't seem to get a proper hookset.

Something funny I noticed was that we even saw fish in slow-moving, shallow water....where were they?

They were stationed on top of big piles of leaves, completely camouflaged.  I thought it was awesome to see a 14-16" trout just appear out of nowhere next to a pile of leaves to chase our streamers.  We even spooked a couple BIG fish that were in seemingly motionless water.  It was a learning experience for both of us.  We explored quite a bit of the river, spotting or getting a take from a big wild brown every now and then.  We were just absolutely blown away by the numbers and size of fish we were seeing.  One of our last stops were below a waterfall, which had some scary deep water, probably over 15' in some spots.  But the water was so clear, we could see a few 12-14" rainbows in the middle of the water, alongside a rock feeding.  Jerry had a few takes on his bugger, but couldn't get them to stay on.  I chose to add a ton of weight and stand right near the waterfall and throw out my streamer until I thought it was close to bottom.  The first time doing this, I hooked up and landed one of the most beautiful brookies I've ever caught..

Amazing contrast!

After a while, the pool seemed pretty spooked, and we wanted to cover more water, so we headed back to the car, fishing our way to it.  We chose to head downstream to see what it was like, but stopped at the first hole where Jerry saw the monster grab my streamer.  It had been a few hours, so we hoped the fish weren't as spooked.  I let Jerry give it a go, and told him where to cast, etc.  He made perfect casts, and I was able to follow his fly as it sank and began to drift downstream.  I spotted a brown working his way upstream near bottom, and told jerry to cast upstream from him and let it dead drift.  His cast couldn't have been any better.  The fly drifted downsream, right until it hit bottom.  I told Jerry to twitch it a few times and then tighten his line so it started to swing.  Sure enough, the fly was twitched and swung right in front of the brown.  He turned around, chased the fly down and grabbed it. I told Jerry to set the hook, and I watched as the fish shook his head - the hook was in.  Jerry did a great job at playing the fish, and lead him right into my net.  A stunning brown with amazing color.  Jerry couldn't believe it!

We were so pumped, and I was so happy for him!  Of course, after that fish, the other fish in the same area were spooked, so we took off.

We picked a spot a few miles downstream to try and bushwhacked our way to the river.  We fished some great looking runs, but couldn't produce anything, or even see a follow.  Finally, a smaller fish, appearing to be a brown, grabbed my streamer but shook off.  It was starting to rain, and get dark, so we decided only a few more holes.  Not too long after, we came upon a huge, wide and infinitely deep pool that looked very promising.  We both stood upstream from it, casting at 45 degree angles, letting our streamers swing down and then strip them back.  After a few minutes, I felt my line stop dead, so I set the hook and felt the head shakes of something big...followed by slack line.  UGH!  This was probably the 4th fish of the day over 18" that I'd gotten to take but had shake off.  Of course, I'm not complaining...now I know where they live.

We fished til' dark, in the rain (left our rain jackets in the car, smart right?) but couldn't land another big beastly brown.  It made me super happy that Jerry had landed such a great fish earlier in the day, and the fact that we'd spotted and/or had action from about 8 fish over 18" just blew me away.

Needless to say, we plan on going back next weekend, and will be exploring even more new water. 

New small water, big fish!

Katlyn and I booked a camping spot about an hour from home, and of course, I'd checked Google Maps for possible fishing spots before we left.  We already knew where to go for a ton of smaller brookies, but I wanted to check out new water!

We arrived, set everything up, cooked over the campfire, then headed out in the morning to the water.  We drove until we could see some of the water.  We kept driving until we found a decent parking spot.  This time, I'd brought my 3 wt for Katlyn to use, and got her all setup with a big Madame X dry fly.  Not wanting to be redundant, I opted for a small, weighted bugger.

We found out way to the water, and it was just beautiful.  It was pretty small, and barely looked over 20 cfs.  I took a temp and got 58, wow!  Perfect!

I had no idea what to expect until Katlyns Madam X was engulfed by a beautiful, wild 10" brookie.  This was a great sign, and I was pumped!

We found pool after pool, just deep and fast enough to hold a decent sized fish.  Katlyn and I both took turns fishing pools, catching plenty of beautiful brookies, and even a little brown.

As we worked our way up, I had Katlyn fish the pools before me, to give her a chance at some dry fly fun.

While soaking up the beautiful scenery, I happened to look over at Katlyns fly, right as she was about to lift it off the water, a swimming log came to check it out, wait what?

A perfect pool for a large predator

The fish was BIG!  I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Katlyn missed it, and probably thought I was nuts.  I was freaking out over seeing this huge fish chase her dry before she pulled it off the water.  I collected myself and had her wait a few minutes before casting again, but nothing...

My heart sank, I hope he didn't get spooked!  She drifted quite a few times, and we gave it a rest before I decided to give the olive bugger a drift.  I casted at the top of the pool, and followed my bugger as it drifted down, right by the large rock the fish was obviously hiding besides.  After the bugger passed the rock, the big shape came out from besides it, chased down the bugger and swiped at it.  It was a complete miss, but my heart was about to explode.

I was so estatic to see such a big fish in this small water that I'd never even fished before.  All of the brookies seemed to be wild, and after checking the States website, this water did not get any stocked fish, meaning whatever we'd caught would be wild.

After the swipe, I let the pool calm for a while, hoping to get another chance.  After throwing the bugger through all the water and not seeing any signs of movement, I wasn't ready to give up.  I was seeing black and golden stones on the rocks all around me.  I added a black, rubber-legged stone dropper to my bugger and began high sticking the fast water at the top of the pool (Katlyn said she saw it head into the white-water)  Sure enough, a few drifts later, I watched my leader stop dead in place.  I set the hook, and this big guy took off downstream.  Woo!!!!  He was on!  My click & pawl reel was screaming - ahhhh what a beautiful sound.  I was ecstatic, and couldn't believe it.  I finally netted him to discover it a was a beautiful brown.  Not as big as I originally thought, but an awesome sized brown for the size of the water it was in.

Well, within an hour of fishing we'd gotten into a 17" brown...good start!

Katlyn continued to fish dries before I fished below the surface, missing and landing quite a few more brookies. 

Katlyn working a great section of water.  She landed two brookies about 5 feet downstream of this, and another just after this picture was taken.  I pinched the barbs on the dries of course, so we opted to not stress these little gems by taking pictures.

We called it a morning, and were off the water before noon to enjoy the rest of the day camping in the woods.

I was surprised when Katlyn asked when we were going fishing again in the morning.  Naturally, we slept in and woke up to the birds chirping, and the chipmunks fighting.  I checked Google Maps to see where we should park to start where we left off the day prior.  I asked a store owner if we could park in their lot, they obliged and were excited to see we were fly-fishing.  We trekked through a field, and then woods to the river.  We had the same setup, her with a dry, me with a streamer and/or nymph.  We got into more brookies right off.  I opted to fish the harder water first because of either log jams or overhanging trees.  I decided to get in on the dry fly fun, so we switched rods and I got a few nice brookies of my own on dries.  I even missed a few bigger fish that appeared to be 12-14" browns.

We worked our way up, and I was very pleased with the water we were seeing.  It was all great holding water with plenty of cover and undercut banks.  We worked on up and found a run that was a bit hard for her to fish with a dry because of the overhanging trees.  I gave it a shot with a dead-drifted bugger.  I couldn't see my fly, but noticed my leader stopped moving downstream - so I set the hook.  A few head shakes later, and a big brown began flailing around the pool.  WOW, another nice brown!  We were hooting and hollaring!  This guy tried to run me in between two large boulders 3 times, luckily I could stick my rod tip in the water to turn him.  I was running 6X, so I knew if he ran in between the sharp rocks, it was over.  I managed to keep his head pointed away from the sharp rocks, but he started to run downstream.  I put the brakes on just enough so I could get behind him to have him run back up into safer netting water.  After a failed net attempt, he gave me another chance, and I found myself throwing my hands up in the air in excitement.

Another healthy, beautiful & wild brown.....wow!  I couldn't believe it.

Another healthy brown, almost 17"

I released this guy and just sat for a few minutes, soaking it all in.  I was so happy, wow!

We continued upstream, catching the usual brookie  or two every other hole, and we came across an absolutely beautiful log jam.  It appeared to be very deep along the downed tree, so I grabbed Katlyns rod, and added a bead-head PT dropper about 18" from her dry fly.  I showed her where to stand, and pointed to where she should try to get the fly to land .

It was picture-perfect.  She made a cast, the dry fly landed right at the top part of the pool, directly in the "feeding lane" of the pool.  I knew if something was lurking under that log it would see her flies.  That's when it happened.....

This big brown comes flying out from underneath the log jam and grabs her dropper.  At the time, she didn't realize he had grabbed her dropper, so she instinctively set the hook after she thought he went for her fly.  She turned to me in disappointment and excitement at the same time, thinking he missed her dry.

"He's on!  You got him, you got him!!!!"

"Huh?" "Oh my god!"

She started to freak out.  Having only really used a fly rod for less than 10 hours, she had no idea what to do with such a big fish.  I could tell by her left hand holding the fly line she was doing the "death grip".  Something beginners do with big fish without even knowing it.  They'll hold the fly line in one hand so tight that when a fish runs it usually breaks the tippet.  I walked her through what to do, and to let the fly line slip through her hands until all of the slack line was gone and the line leading to the reel was tight.  She did great, and had the fish on the reel in seconds.

I was super nervous....  There were about 4 trees downed underwater, and it was heading right to them.  I told her to put the rod tip right in the water whenever he went towards the log to disorient him, and it worked perfectly.  I managed to slip the net under the fish while it was disoriented from being spun around.

I was so proud, wow!!!  It's not every day you hook into and LAND a big wild brown on a fly the third day fly fishing (a dry-dropper setup at that!)

All 3 browns have a blue spot on the cheek, but this one was very prominent.  So pretty!

She was scared of hurting the fish by doing the grip'n'grin so this was the best shot we got.  It was just a little bigger than the 2 other fish, coming in at 18"  I was unbelievably proud, and she was so stoked!  We had just an amazing fishing experience so far, and it couldn't have gotten any better. 

We fished for a few more hours before calling it.  We continued to catch brookies, but couldn't find any more deep holding water for big browns.  We started the trek back to the car with smiles on our faces, and rightfully so. 

The last day of our camping trip, we decided to fish a little on our way back home.  We fished the same water, but a few miles lower.  The temp was 63 at about 10 A.M. which wasn't too bad at all.

Since it was a short trip, we didn't fish more than 3/4 of a mile, but I noticed how much wider and flatter the river was in this area.  I wasn't really impressed with the water, but we did find a few holes that held fish.  There was quite a few section that had no shade, and it was a sunny day.  We noticed a lot of minnow life though.  There were thousands of creek chubs swimming around in the warmer, shallower water.  After a dozen or so fish and/or takes, we decided to call it and head home to unpack.

All in all, it was an incredible fishing trip, and I'll never forget it.  Watching Katlyn cast a dry-dropper setup perfectly on a run, and then watching this nearly 18" brown come out from underneath the log jam and grab her fly...just...wow!

Needless to say, I will be back to explore more of this river before trout season closes.  

Nostalgia

Every year, I like to visit a few honey-holes that I've only showed a few people, and have never seen anyone fish.  It is a small stream with big pools that holds a variety of wild fish.  A few weeks back, after we'd just got a few days of light rain, I figured it would be a good chance to check out the stream to see how it's doing.

I got a later start than I wanted, but arrived just before the fog lifted, which was a great sight.

I rigged up my 4 wt and started the walk to the stream.  There is something to be said about heading out to fish early in the morning while it's still chilly and foggy...I just love it.  It reminds me of some of the best fishing I've ever had.

The stream was surprisingly low, even though we'd gotten quite a bit of rain over the last week.  Not unusual to see after a long dry spell though.  I started off nymphing a golden stone with a small pt dropper without much to show for it.  It wasn't until that I switched to a size 8 olive crystal bugger that I started to see fish on the move.  I could see a few fish in a large pool, one looking to be over 16"  I was stoked, but after landing a gorgeous 10" brookie, knew that I had no chance of landing the bigger fish(he found a spot to hide and refused to budge).  From my experience, these wild trout are very spooky and get lock jaw when spooked(more-so than say, a salmon that is just aggressive and will hit the same fly more than once).  It can be very frustrating, but humbling at the same time. 

I took my leave and worked my way upstream.  I decided to fish higher up than I usually do, which is difficult because of the private property surrounding the water.  I knew if I stayed on the side of the stream the whole way up, I'd be fine.  After missing a few nicer fish swinging the bugger, I arrived at a hole I hadn't fished in a few years because of the hard access.  It was much different than last time, but still looked great.

A large pool with a smaller, much deeper pool was above it (and I mean DEEP, 10+ feet..) made the fishing difficult because of the swirling current, so I started by stripping the bugger in the top of the water column for fish looking up.  It worked just as I thought, and I had two fish in hand within 5 minutes.

I switched tactics to try to reach fish closer to bottom and ended up with a 14' leader with quite a bit of weight that really wasn't easy to toss, but I made it work.  I added a golden stone dropper to the same bugger that had been producing and began to find the right spot to cast to get that good drift without the swirl pulling my line.  It was evident that I found the sweep spot when I felt a hard tug on my line, followed by a spunky 14" rainbow flying out of the water.  So much fun on a click & pawl reel!  I was running 6 and 7x tippet, so this guy ended up taking me down a few pools before I could lead him into the net.

I was psyched! I let the pool rest for 5 minutes and gave it another go by high-sticking with the very long leader.  Within minutes, my line stopped dead in place...fish on!  I had another bigger fish on.  When it got close to the surface, it looked like a nice brown.  It wasn't until it turned on its side that I could see it was a big brookie!  An obvious male with a huge snout and wicked vibrant color.  I'm always a bit more cautious about handling brookies for some reason, and he got the better of me before I could snap a quick pic in the net.  He flopped out and went on his way.  Judging by when he was stretched out in the net, he could have hit the 13" mark!

After that, the pool was pretty well spooked and I headed back to the car to drive downstream.  I drove down a few miles and parked on the side of the road and walked to the water.  It's 100 times easier to fish upstream than downstream, so I stayed away from the water while walking downstream, until I spotted some water I liked.  I hit the water and picked up a small brown on the bugger, but ended up hitting a wide, flat section of the stream with no holding water.  After a while, I hit a section of water near an open field, with a couple of nice log jams with very promising pools.  Surprisingly, I got no love until I was near the end of my adventure. 

To me, this looked like brownie heaven.  I stood behind the jam, to the left and tossed the bugger upstream to the right of the picture.  When the fly sank and drifted almost underneath the log jam, I gave it a twitch and started retrieving it.  Right as it got to the surface, this spunky little brown took it upon himself to make it his lifes work to destroy this bugger.  He came out and hit so fast, he nearly flew out of the water!

 

What a great way to end my morning jaunt!

Brookies and bowfin

Katlyn and I spent the afternoon a few weeks back scoping out the Smuggs campground for our upcoming camping trip, and I figured it'd be a great opportunity to check out some brookie water nearby.  We packed a lunch in our bags and headed out Sat morning.  I picked one of the "easier" to get to streams(thanks, Google Maps!), so after checking out the campsites, we headed towards it, parked the car on the road and trekked into the woods to the stream.  The simplicity of brookie fishing can be the most relaxing thing on a hot Summer day.  It was mid-80's back in Town, but barely over 70 in the mountains.  The thermometer barely hit 57, and the fish were as active as could be.  The stream was beautiful, and had plenty of cover.  A sign of a great brookie stream.

Within minutes of getting on the stream, I could just sense how fishy this stream was.  As we approached the first fishy looking water, it took no more than 2 drifts of a dry before a little wild brookie zealously chased the fly down, splashing twice while attempting to eat it. 

After the 20th brookie, I offered the fly rod to Katlyn, showing her how simple it was to high-stick a dry through this small of water.

The look of determination!

She really enjoyed watching these brookies chase down and hit these dries!  I know I'll be bringing another rod and reel next time!  She managed to trick half a dozen brookies, and loved it.  After a while, we found a spot to eat lunch, fished for another hour or so and then bushwhacked our way back to the road and then back to the car.  It was an awesome day, and couldn't have been any better (well, a 15" brookie would have been nice)

The next day, I talked her into checking out what fishing for bowfin on flies was all about.  We arrived at where I'd landed my biggest bowfin to date, and immediately spotted a small male bowfin (still in spawning color) actively cruising around, chasing the panfish that were still guarding their nests.  She was amazed to see a fish of that size in very low, and crystal clear water.  Not too long after, I noticed a large bowfin laying on bottom with her head lodged underneath a log.   The male was too busy chasing panfish, so I had Katlyn stand at a higher vantage point to let me know where my casts needed to go.  My casts were accurate, dropping right in front of its nose, but it showed no interest whatsoever.  I quickly changed flies, and put the bright orange crayfish pattern with foam claws back in the box and tied on an olive rubber legged large carp fly that has great action.  She made quick work of this fly, doing a 180 after it was stripped past her line of vision.  Even at a bad angle, I could see the wake behind her as she chased the fly down and grabbed it.  I straight-set it and she missed the hook, bummer....!  It didn't take long before she was back near her log, and chasing the fly again.  This time, the hook connected, and she exploded!  She headed right for a downed log, that crafty fish

She didnt hang me up on the log, but did a good job of changing the direction of the line pull by going under the log.  Shortly after, she was off, bummer...she was one of the biggest bowfin I'd tangled with too, probably 7-8 lbs, twice as big as the smaller male cruising around. 

Since we were on a time limit, we had to leave right after, so I didn't get a third chance (she went and hid in the weeds about 40 yards away anyway) but Katlyn thought it was the coolest thing that such big fish were right out in the open.  Next, it'll be her turn to get one on a fly!

Dry Fly fun

When the Summer heat is on, it pays to seek out colder, mountain-fed streams, which is exactly what Chris and I did on a beautiful Saturday morning.

We started things off with a bang, fishing a Winooski trib that held an abundance of fish.  We both ventured into water we'd never fished before, and were rewarded.

This 11-12" brookie slammed a bright pink and purple foam hopper

We had a blast for half of the day, climbing up the rocky terrain, fishing pool to pool, catching dozens of brookies, some almost 13"!  Chris even tricked a few beautiful wild rainbows about 14" on a spinning rod.  Almost all of my fish were on dries too, which made the trip even better!

Other side of the spectrum

I told myself this would be the year I start targeting warmwater species, mainly carp, bowfin, and gar.  I consider myself a very observant angler, and always seem to remember key factors when fishing for certain species.  For carp, it was determining which fish to target.  They are broken up into different categories, which vary from person to person.  Off the top of my head, my first carp experience showed me sunbathing carp, spawning carp, cruising carp, and tailing(feeding off the bottom, tail pointed up).  The spawning behavior was obvious.  A few male carp were harassing a large female, knocking her around.  I later learned their motives for being so aggressive - it was so the female would drop her eggs.

I remember casting flies to a couple of sunbathing carp, they were stationary, and could care less about anything around them, food wise.  I wasted hours trying to get them to eat before realizing it just wasn't going to happen.  Cruising carp were just like they sound, they were constantly moving.  Was it because they were spooked, or was it spawning behavior?  Honestly, I'm not sure.  All I know is that they rarely stopped, and rarely ate. 

Tailing carp, of course were the most fun.  I remember seeing a small group close to eachother that were sifting through the bottom with their telescopic mouths.  Small puffs of mud was a dead giveaway in water that was too deep to spot the carp in.  A friend of mine told me this behavior was called, "mudding" which is probably the result of a tailing carps muddy puff clouds from feeding.

I learned quickly that casting on top of a carp, regardless of what it's doing (besides spawning, they're pretty thick headed to the point where I've gotten hit by a pod chasing a big hen) will most likely spook them, especially with a weighted fly.  I learned that casting 10-20' beyond a fish and then stripping the fly so it drops in front of them was a great way to get them to take.  The tailing carp I targeted didn't seem to want to move more than a few feet for the fly, so a close proximity was necessary in my case.

All of this info was learned in just one carp outting, so it defeinitely pays to be an observant angler.

Now, let's fast-forward to the LCI weekend.  My friend Jerry who I regularly fish with and my Brother, Nate wanted to go catch some big fish.  The rivers weren't looking too great, they were pretty high on the Winooski, and very dirty. None of us were competing in the LCI, so it was just an exploratory journey to have some fun. 

A coworker of mine told me about where he fishes for warmwater species in the Vergennes area, around Otter Creek.  Having limited experience with that river, I hit Google maps and plotted out some warmwater fishing for the 3 of us. 

We got up, packed the jeep and left early that next morning.  Our first location was packed with anglers that had tents, and a gazeebo setup.  We moved on and found open water  that looked promising and fishy.  Before we even parked the jeep, I could see two fish just below the surface cruising around.  I couldn't make out what they were, but they looked long (30"+)  We were pumped, and geared up to fish.

Since Nate and Jerry have no fly fishing experience, it was going to be a spin fishing day for them, and of course I brought my 7 wt for when the opportunity to sight fish presented itself.

We were seeing a ton of commotion a few 100 yards away in the swampy area.  It looked as if the carp were still spawning.  They were running into thick sections of grass, almost beaching themselves.

It didn't take long for us to get a bite on bait, and in the next few hours, we had a ball catching almost a dozen bowfin, some of which were huge!  I couldn't get over how the males were a beautiful emerald green color for spawning.

While standing next to the water, my Brother spotted a bowfin almost poking his nose out of the water, looking right at us.  This was the type of behavior I remember seeing when I caught my first bowfin on a fly.  I told my Brother to do the same as I did when I witnessed this behavior - drop your bait right in front of his face and wiggle it.  Sure enough, a second after it hit the water and wiggled, the bowfin inhaled it.  When I knew the hook was far enough in, I told Nate to set it, and wham!  The fish exploded and took off.  Nate won the battle, and the bowfin was soon in the net.

Nates first bowfin in a very long time, and a huge female at that.  I'd say almost 30"

Jerrys smaller male - check out the coloration of the fins!

The first action we had was actually doubles.  My bait rod went off while I was tossing a fly to some commotion in the water and as Nate grabbed my rod, Jerry set the hook on this fish.  The fish that was on my rod was huge, and bolted toward the grass like a hippo.  Shortly after, the hook came out.  Not sure what it was, but whatever it was, was massive!

After a few hours, we decided to head back to the first spot that had more open water.  The group was still there, so we decided to fish out of their way, in a spot about 50 yards away.  We could see fish rolling everywhere, which got us pumped!

Unfortunately, the little catfish and bullhead had other plans for our bait.  Every fish we were catching was one of them, which was concerning.  I was starting to wonder if the carp even had a chance to get to our bait.  I looked over in some shallower water and saw bubbles coming to the surface, "Maybe the result of a tailing carp?" I thought to myself.  I casted beyond the bubbles and reeled up so my bait fell on top of it.  Within minutes, something was showing interest.  I let it grab it for a few seconds before setting the hook.  I could tell right away it was no small catfish.  Soon after the hookset, I let the guys know it was something big, and to be ready with the net.  After a tough time steering the fish away from the sharp rocks near us, the fish showed us its power.  Without even seeing what the fish was, its tail was creating quite the commotion on the top of the water - what power!  Finally, it was in the net!

I took the hook out, got a quick weight in the net, did a grip'n'grin and sent the fish back on its way.  Mission accomplished!

An almost 20 lb carp, not bad!

After that, we went back to catching the small bullhead and catfish until we decided it was time to go explore a few other spots.  Before we left, we did manage to see a big gar skim the surface right in front of us, which was awesome!

We ended up in a common spot which was insanely dense with anglers.  All of the LCI participants setup camp all along the side of Otter Creek.  I hadn't seen fishing pressure like this since the Salmon River.  They were there for good reason though, and seemed to be regularly catching sheepshead.

We couldn't manage to fit in with the other anglers, so we opted to fish the opposide side of the road, where the backwater was.  It took a while, but Nate finally had something big on, and it gave him a run for his money.  It started to make a big run underneath a bridge, which would make it nearly impossible to get the fish from.  Unfortunately, he had a gear malfunction, and his drag almost crapped out, leaving too much slack in the line.  The fish got off, and we were all bummed...judging by the power and speed, it had to of been a big carp or sheepshead.

A little while later, we had to pack it up and head home.  Jerry had to be back in town for something, so we left.  Overall it was a great day, especially since we'd never fished any of that water before.  Now I understand why it gets so much pressure.  We will definitely be back!!