I awoke at 4 a.m. on Black Friday in order to get to the Swift before dawn.
The morning started with a bit of frustration, as I went one-for-seven with dry flies. Seven takes and one landed, with three fish popping off in the middle of the fight and three missed hook sets. When surface action stopped, I switched to nymphing and landed quite a few fish. I wasn’t counting but it felt like two dozen or so.
Just note that the river is completely packed. People will move in within 10 feet of you without asking and fish. This happened twice to me, but, hey, I think that’s the price of fishing a popular river on a holiday weekend.
Most folks, however, were super nice. I enjoyed meeting David and his extended family, who were visiting from Ireland and Seattle. Good to say hello again to Dan Trela and Wooly Bugger George.
Best flies for me and those around willing to share: (as usual) small nymphs. I stomach pumped a trout and it was loaded with small grey scuds, and so, my small soft hackle did well. David reported that a light-colored WD-40 also did well. I didn’t get any takes on my dark-colored ones. An angler next to me did well on size 22 midges (black thread, CDC for a hint of a wing). I also had quite a few takes on midges, like the Miracle Nymph.
Looking forward to the Patriots-Broncos game. Might be snowing, which should slow down Denver’s pass rush, and the Patriots tend to outplay their opponents when there’s snow. Fingers crossed.
Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Now that's the right way to spend your time on Black Friday.
Mike
🙂
Certainly didn't want to hang around the house or go shopping!
It seems that you're just as good at analyzing football games as you are at analyzing trout waters!
Was remembering the home game against the Titans. Ri-dic-u-lous. We could use the help. Amendola is out.
They just added another tight end to the roster. Interestingly, they released LB Eric Martin and then waited a day until adding to the roster. I wonder if Bill B. was making sure the weather forecast for snow was accurate.
So, I'm wondering if Josh McD. is going to run it right at them with the Blount Special, using a three tight end formation. Run blocking hopefully is easier for a young O-line. Then, I suspect on D they'll stack the box and dare the new Denver QB to beat them by throwing.
I'm excited for this game. FiveThirtyEight.com lists them as a 59% win probability. The site also forecasts all of their remaining games. This is the tightest game by far remaining on the schedule. Can they run the table?
How's Commish Roger feelin' now? He has created a monster. TB12 is on fire.
Even with Brady on fire right now, i think its gonna be a low scoring game with lots of running, brock osweiler probably wont be comfortable throwing in the snow, and the pats recieving corps is decimated right now, its all gonna depend on how the o-line can hold up…
Agree with you, Trout fisherman147.
I think the first few series will be telling. If the O can do a power run game and get "four yards and a cloud of (snow) dust" each down, we are in good shape. That then can set up play action. I think Gronk will be double covered. My gut says that Scott Chandler needs to have a big game both as a blocker and a pass catcher via quick routes. If Brady has to hold the ball for 2+ seconds per pass attempt, it won't be pretty.
Agreed.
I was there too… Probably the most crowded I've ever seen the Swift. I don't know if I can blame people for jumping in though. By mid-morning there was hardly anywhere above Route 9 you could get in with any reasonable amount of space. It must have been the nice weather. Last year on Black Friday it was cold and snowy and there were far fewer people.
I did get a nice rainbow on a Chernobyl Ant though, so it was still a good day.
Agree. Always good to be charitable, something that I normally lack. When someone's line tangled with mine for the 4th time, I just decided to move. I managed to smile at the person, though!
Ok line tangling is a different story – that's definitely too close!
The other angler was very friendly and is new to fly fishing. Yup, I could see "the whites of their eyes," to borrow a New England expression. Hope you're well Colie, and that you will have a restorative break from all your intense studies.
I don't understand why you pump the stomachs of the trout you catch. For pete sakes, you must already understand what they are eating with all the trout you catch there. It takes a lot of energy for trout to feed to survive.
It's a good point, but know that I do it sparingly. You do it only on larger trout and a quick pump doesn't remove all of the food in their gut.
And, no, the bug hatches vary quite a bit. Sometimes, the trout are full of midges, sometimes scuds, and sometimes other items. I'm amazed but how varied it is.
Also, forgot to mention this: have I ever unnecessarily stomach-pumped trout? The answer is "yes." So, I appreciate your comment and will be more mindful.
Don't pay me any mind. I was out of line with my comments and apologize. You have a great blog site here that I enjoy and learn a lot from. Keep up the good work and good fishing. Regards, Sam
I disagree. Speak your mind. We all are better off for it.
That brookie has a huge kype. Wow! I agree on your analysis of the Pats game. Should be a close one, and I hope it snows! Not only because it's usually kind to us, but also it makes the game more fun to watch.
Yeah, I was blown away by that kype.
Also, this was caught nymphing a deeper run. The brookie spawn seems nearly over, with much fewer fish on redds in the shallows.
Jo, I was there Friday too and struggled with dries in the tree pool area in the morning. I was amazed at the mob at the Pipe, I mean it was like a fishing derby! It looked to me that you "ruled the roost", every time I looked up you had a fish on. After 1 I moved in to the run just below the pipe and did much better nymphing than with dries below. I was surprised the big bows were still feisty and I lost a few strong guys who ran up towards the pipe and you. I hope I wasn't one of the guys crowding you and that stretch of river is highly pressured so people squeeze in all day long. Zebra's, Brassies, micro pheasant tails all worked as did egg patterns. Late in the day I saw some rises and took a couple on a mole fly, a great emerger. Dave
Dewey61, thanks for the kind words. Next time, please say hello? I will give you some of my flies.
Glad to hear you did well on so many flies. I find that stretch of the Swift to be pretty mysterious, actually. There is no pattern as to which flies will work–I find that it really depends on the day, and, for what reason, I really don't know. So, I just rotate flies pretty quickly, probably, every 5 minutes, until I find something that works. Then, when that works, the fish seem to wise up, and I have to go again through my fly box rotation.
Again, say hello next time?