Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Catskills 2008 - Next Trip



"Trip" is right. I have a plantar's wart buried deep in the ball of my left foot, and no amount of padding and tape can keep it from hurting like a mamma-tamma.

Which makes for clumsy wading. "Whose feet are these?" he asked as his fundament met solid rock.

The loose confederation of fly rodders who stock about two and half miles of "our stream" were at work over Memorial Day, and there are now a lot of confused brown trout to supplement the wiry and wary wild rainbows.

(Read that last bit like Elmer Fudd, or Barbara Walters.)

I didn't get going Sunday until mid-afternoon, so I used a combo of an elk hair caddis ties as a Royal (flash of red) as the top/indicator fly and a green soft-hackled wet fly on a short dropper - about a foot of mono separated the two.

This is because a) it was windy and I didn't want a lot of stuff blowing around and tangling b) a foot was all the 3X I had left.

The soft-hackle wet is a great pattern for the sunlight. It causes fish to emerge from their hidey holes while other flies get the brush-off.

The new stocked fish are still pretty stupid - I suspect a fly tied to imitate a liver pellet would be a big hit - but the Grandpa in the photo came out of nowhere and grabbed the caddis, not the soft hackle.

That fish has been in the river a while. He measured up at about 16 inches, give or take. A good trout for this little creek.

(All fish returned unharmed.)


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