Mid-week on the White River

Last week, at the WRO, there were a handful of small prizes on the table after everyone had either gotten a prize or gotten picked in a raffle.  There were a handful of fly boxes - maybe 6 or so.  People were allowed to grab whatever they wanted after everyone had a prize.  Because I'd placed and won a very nice prize, I stayed back at first.  But, two of the fly boxes were nearly untouched.  I didn't know the name of either of the patterns, but one looked like a great fly for the White River - a sculpin/leech/bugger type of pattern.

Some internet research later revealed that it was a Charlie Craven pattern called the Gonga.  This fly is usually tied in a large size, but these were smaller than normal.  I grabbed a handful of these flies after others opted not to take them.  And today, I'm glad I did.

I worked from home yesterday due to a medical appointment.  I'd worked out hard the three previous days, so I decided I would fish after work rather than work out.  I opted to head to a spot where I knew a couple people had done well in the WRO the previous week.

During the day, I was talking to a friend on FB, and he told me that he'd fished the same spot the previous evening, and that he'd done well with black leech patterns.  So, I opted for a Gonga and a Prince Nymph to start.

I got to the spot around 5:30 and headed to the upper reaches of about 300 yards of water I wanted to work.  I was all alone and looking forward to fishing this entire stretch.  It only took a couple minutes and I'd hooked and landed a stockie.  I was very surprised to catch him on the Gonga and not the Prince Nymph.  I few minutes later, I had a second fish, this time on the Prince Nymph.

A couple minutes later, I had a hard hit early in my drift and I missed the fish.  I repeated the cast and immediately got another strike, and this time, I hooked the fish.  I knew right away this wasn't a normal stockie.  But, unlike most wild rainbows, it wasn't jumping, so I wasn't sure what was on the line.  It was probably 5 minutes before I even saw the fish.  My first thought when I saw it was surprise that it was a brown trout.  Since Hurricane Irene, I've caught very few browns in the main branch of the White.  I do OK with browns on the Third Branch, but not in the main branch.  But, I was also fishing within sight of the Third Branch, so a brown should have been less surprising.  The other thing that excited me when I saw the fish was its size.  I finally got it to the net, and quickly unhooked it, measured it, and released it.  It was an 18" brown - my biggest ever brown from the White River drainage:

The fish didn't have the distinctive yellow belly of wild browns from the Third Branch.  I'm guessing that it was a holdover stocked fish from last year that had moved downstream, but I could easily be wrong on that.

I kept moving downstream and noticed another angler just below me.  At first, I thought he was spin fishing, but eventually, I realized he was tossing flies from the shore and stripping them back in.  I saw him catch a fish.  I got closer to where he was fishing, making sure to give him plenty of room when another hard strike happened.  This time, the fish immediately went airborne.  Then deep,  Airborne.  Deep.  He was putting quite a bend in my rod and the other fisherman thought I had a big fish on and came over with a big net.  I told him I was fine and eventually netted a 13" wild rainbow.

The other guy and I got talking, and it turned out he was a guide who was leading a trip on the White the next day, so he was prospecting.  He was also a Facebook friend, although we'd never met in person before.  We had connected on Facebook through mutual fishing friends.  We talked for a while.  I gave him one of the flies that was working for me.  We talked about cancer - something that has touched both of our lives recently.  We talked about fishing together in the future and made a plan to float the Upper Connecticut later this summer.

He eventually moved down into the water I'd hoped to fish next, and I saw him catch a few stocked trout plus some smallmouth bass.  Because of where he was fishing, I decided to re-fish the same stretch I'd just fished.  I had a few strikes on the way back through.  But, it was getting late, I had dinner to cook, a hockey game to watch, and I was getting cold.

When I got home, I had messages from two friends telling me about another spot just upstream that I should have fished, but I saw them too late.  But, I'll be back there tomorrow, looking for more big fish.