An interesting evening on the trout stream

[tangledup]

Tonight was quite an interesting experience on the trout stream. I hadn't hit the small stream near the house in a few weeks and found myself with a rare evening to myself so I decided to spend a couple hours flailing my line around in the air. I found that I had really missed that exciting feeling of my fly getting tangled in low-hanging limbs because I forgot to glance over my shoulder. Plus, I heard about the concept of a sliding dry-dropper rig recently and was itching to give it a try. 

Due to the lack of rain I knew the stream would be low and clear so I tried a new section of stream that, based on the Google machine, looked like it might have some deeper holes. It took me a couple attempts but I managed to put together the sliding dropper rig and it actually seemed to work. At least while it was sitting on the tailgate of my truck. I should say the third attempt at tying it worked. The first two attempts resembled a spider's web if the spider had consumed a pint of my favorite Ozark mountain white lightening before attempting to spin said web. Rod in hand I set off down the trail in search of some of the deeper pools. In about half a mile I found exactly what I was looking for: a nice deep, wide pool with several decent sized trout spread out across the head of the pool, darting back and forth as they fed. The problem was I was at the top of a 30 foot bank and the pool was at the bottom of the bank. I walked up and down the stream a hundred yards in each direction but could not find a good place to make it down the bank. Not one to be deterred by the challenge of a little rough terrain I started down the steep bank. (Did I mention it was steep?  Like, almost straight up and down) About two thirds of the way down I got hung up on a grape vine and very quickly finished my descent, skillfully stopping just before I ended up in the water. As I came to rest at the bottom of the bank I heard the dreaded "snap" that makes the heart of every angler drop. I rolled off of my rod, fully expecting to see the end of it dangling from the fly line. Luckily it was just a small stick that broke under the weight of my graceful landing. 

Needless to say all the fish had sought cover from the giant cannonball careening down the cliff so I walked up to the next pool. A few small trout were feeding in this pool so I made a few casts with no success. I tested the adjustability of the dry-dropper rig and was very pleased with how easily I could adjust it anywhere from 18" to 36" from my dry fly. I started with a Chubby Chernobyl and BH pheasant tail but didn't get any interest in them at all. I fished two more pools with this set up and didn't get so much as a look. I tried a couple other nymphs and still didn't have any luck so I finally switched to my super secret, never fails me fly. I moved up around the next bend and found a perfect pool with several feeding trout and enough room to cast that even I couldn't get tangled. On my first cast in this pool I had a nice little rainbow actually take a swipe at the dry and miss! I was so excited as I have yet to actually land a fish on a dry fly. 

When I moved into the pool I noticed a small feeder stream, more of a runoff really, coming into the head of the pool. I managed to get my flies just at the mouth of that stream and they hadn't drifted more than two feet when the Chubby suddenly darted under the water. Fish on! As soon as the Chubby darted under another trout smashed it. Doubles!!! I've had doubles before when bass fishing small rivers and streams but never with a fly rod. Of all the days to leave the GoPro at home. The fish that hit the dry fly managed to shake itself loose so I didn't actually land the double but it was still an awesome experience. and although the trout that took the wor.....errrr.....other fly, was no trophy, I had to snap a picture of him just to commemorate the experience. From that point on it was like someone had flipped a switch. I caught half a dozen more fish in the next hour, although none were more than 12". The coolest part was I could move from hole to hole and quickly adjust the depth of my wor.....errr....bottom fly, to match the water depth. 

In the last pool I fished I let my line pull tight at the end of the drift to flip it up to the head of the pool again. When I did, I felt an odd resistance and the line came out of the water about three feet and fell back in with a plop. I figured I had messed something up, or got hung in a weed or something so I tried again and the same thing happened. I pulled my line in and found I had snagged a crawdad! Got him right in the tail. He was a feisty bugger and didn't like me taking the hook out of his tail, but I finally managed to rescue him and set him free after holding him in the water and properly reviving him.

By this point it was starting to get dark and I was on the wrong side of the creek (with my truck being on the other side) so I started to look for a place to cross. I found a nice shallow spot with what looked to be a nice smooth bottom and struck out across the creek. I took three steps before the bottom of the earth fell away and I felt myself being sucked down into the abyss. Apparently in the waning hours of daylight silt can look just like a nice hard rock bottom. I grew up wading and fishing small streams and have probably walked from Kansas City to St. Louis several times with the miles I've logged wading streams. I have never encountered mud or silt this deep. Without exaggeration it was over both my knees. By the time I managed to get turned around and headed back to the bank I had sunk to mid-thigh and was wondering what my wife would spend the life insurance money on. 

I finally made it to solid ground and found my way back to the trail, just in time to run into a couple out for an evening stroll. I know I looked like something from a horror movie with mud caked everywhere and weeds hanging out of my beard and hair and the poor girl's saucer sized eyes made me aware that I might have alarmed them a little. As I trudged by them, one sandal on and the other flopping around on my foot like a wet noodle due to a broken strap (it fell victim to the suction of the mud bog), I just muttered, "Don't go down there" and walked back to my truck. 

It was definitely an outing to remember, but I still loved (almost) every minute of it. 

[Johnsfolly]

7 hours ago, tangledup said:

It was definitely an outing to remember, but I still loved (almost) every minute of it. 

Congrats on a very nice rainbow! Go catch some more!

We used to fish some strip pits that we called extreme adventure fishing. Similarly we would often have to climb up and down cliffs to get to the water. I once caught a 6+ lb channel cat which I am certain someone switched at the last minute for the 8 lb bass that was on my line . I thought about keeping the catfish for dinner. I looked at the catfish and then at the 16 foot cliff above me and then at the catfish.... Needless to say that catfish swam off strong !