Today, we saw, we fished, and we threw scuds.
Before the blog team formed, and after Swift River Burn Out set in for me, I would still go back near year-end before “catch and keep” returned below Route 9 and the fish ended up in anglers’ freezers.
Now, it’s fun to go with others.
Fellow blogger Ashu Rao and I fished both above and below Route 9. It was designed to be a blog team outing, but the others couldn’t make it.
Ashu was his usual ace self: he brought two fly rods and caught oodles of fish while tightlining and throwing #26 dries. He is a stud.
As for me, I mostly threw nymphs-and-bobbers. It was a good-volume session for me early, and it became progressively slower as the hours ticked by and more anglers showed up. Nearly all of my fish were via nymphs.
Our hot fly of the day was a scud fly. I tied some last night and this morning. For some reason, scuds do well for me at that river in October and November. Size 18s.
I ran into one of the Swift regulars, who fishes there nearly every day. He remarked that this year’s brookie spawn was marginal compared to prior years. He also said that the river’s contours have changed. Record-high flows for many months have re-shaped the river.
I would agree. I didn’t see many spawning fish, and I noticed that the fish were holding at different areas. That’s nature, I suppose.
The best fish for me was a slab of a ‘bow. The fat fish was quite phat.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving week. I won’t fish next weekend in order to focus on family. But, I soon thereafter will go on my steelhead trip.
Stay tuned!
Sounds like a good day for both of you. I fished the Pipe Pool last week and around 11:00 the water started to boil with rises, so naturally I thought a pellet hatch. I tied on a pellet fly and after 20 or so casts had only one rise. I waded to the middle of the run with my net out in front of me to capture whatever pellets for size and color where coming down the flow. To my complete surprise, my net was full of tiny midges. There were no insects in the air, only on the surface. So I tied on a size 24 dark olive midge and right away got rises and fish. Never saw that kind of action on midges in that pool before. Even an old regular like me can learn new things!
Wow! One time, I was at the Y Pool during the winged ant migration. Rises everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Peace and blessings to you and your family this Thanksgiving, Gary!
I had a blast yesterday, Jo! Thanks for joining me and awesome shot of that tank fish
Same! Always great to hang out with you.