I'm not going to name the river where I fished on Saturday, but locals should be able to figure out what water I'm talking about.
This is special regulations water - catch and release only. I fish there a few times a year, always in search of the big browns that allegedly inhabit this water, but I have yet to land one. A friend of mine had a good morning there Saturday - fishing big streamers for big browns after thunderstorms the night before. He got two big browns - one of them bigger than any brown I've ever caught.
I got to a well known spot with easy river access around 4:30 p.m. I fought through some brush to get to the river. I was hoping I wasn't going to fight to get to the water, only to find it was too warm to fish, but luckily, it was 64.5F - well within the safe parameters. The first couple holes are slow water, and I drifted some nymphs with a strike indicator as I scouted around for insect life. Those first few holes gave me nothing.
The first hole with some moving water was much better though. I had about 5 strikes in 10 minutes and landed 3 small wild rainbows. Considering that I often get zero fish on this river, or maybe 1, getting 3 fish, even small fish, felt like a good day already. I continued fishing downstream. The next hole was devoid of fish, due to low flows. Two years ago, I'd hooked a big brown in that hole on a huge black stonefly, but there were no fish to be found Saturday.
In the next hole, I'd briefly hooked a big rainbow last year, but I had a few bad casts and then a snag this time. After I snapped off my snag, my strike indicator came loose and floated into the next hole and stopped. So, I ruined that hole by wading in to retrieve my indicator. I fished another 4-5 holes downstream with no luck, and decided to move on.
At my second location, a bit downstream, I had a few deep holes to work, with long stretches of calm water in between. I worked hard to get some good clean drifts through these holes, and repeatedly changed my fly depth. No luck at all. I was seeing some BWOs by now, and I had a mayfly nymph, a stone nymph, and a BWO nymph, in that order, on my rig. The latter two nymphs had produced those first 3 fish. I got no strikes at all on the second stretch and debated what to do next. I had a third spot I was considering - one that I like for nymphing. But, it was after 7:00 by now, and I was exhausted from a few tough gym workouts the previous day. So, I headed for my "secret" hole on this river.
It's not easy to get to, especially this time of year. You can park way downstream and wade up quite a ways. You can park way upstream, walk the road, and access the creek through a horrible jungle of knotweed. Or, you can find the secret parking spot and wade down through a tiny creek to get there. I have never seen another fisherman in this stretch.
There are 2 main holes here, and before Hurricane Irene, there were 3. But, after some work on the nearby railroad tracks, the river flow changed and the middle hole disappeared. I fished the top hole with the nymphs and was honestly surprised to have no strikes at all. I waded down to the lower hole and just watched for a while. Before the hurricane, I consistently did well with dries in this hole. But, some repair work after the hurricane really re-configured the hole, and it's been slow to rebound. I took a friend in there last year and he got a nice 18" wild rainbow on a dry.
I saw no fish working the surface, so I stuck with my nymphs. But, as I got to the bottom of the hole, I started to see a few smaller fish rising. I think they were going after BWO emergers, but there were also a few hexagenia in the air. I put on a small (size 16) BWO and landed a rainbow on my first cast. In the next 15 minutes, I got 2 browns. But, the fish were still small, and I was after something bigger. The hexagenia were becoming more numerous, so I switched to a bigger hex pattern to try to scare up a bigger fish. I had one brown come up to the fly twice before refusing it, and a couple small fish batter the fly around. But, no luck on the bigger fish. By now, it was almost 9:00 and I still had to drive home and cook dinner, so I called it a day. But, taking 6 small fish in this river is very promising for its future and its continued recovery from the hurricane.
On Monday, my wife and I tried to fish the White. Above the Third Branch, the main branch had a temperature above 71F. Below the confluence, it was as high as 76F. People were swimming in the first hole I wanted to fish.
I drove upstream to a side stream that is never too hot to fish, and measured 71F there. I opted to not push higher into the side streams. My wife struggles with casting under tight tree canopies, so we called it a day. The weather the next 2 weeks does not look promising for restoring the streams to being fishable. I may travel up towards the Canadian border in search of cooler water next weekend.
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