Trip Report: Beating the Mud

 This week has been busy. I built a fly rod, repaired a fly rod, and started another one. I also tied up 4 orders for flies and have another order to finish by Monday. When streams clear up likely by Monday on small streams, Tuesday on bigger ones the bwo's should come off fast n furious. By the end of the month caddis flies should follow!

With partly cloudy skies and temps in the 50's it was hard to wait to fish today. I did some shopping with the wife until around noon. I hurried to the stream shortly after and got on the water by around 100pm. I arrived to find conditions much more clear than expected. I planned to cast a deer hair quill bodied mayfly emerger down and across to elicit aggressive strikes from upward looking brookies and browns. There was a really nice dude fishing just off the road and we chit chatted for around a half hour before I headed down stream. Within about 100 yards muddy water poured into the stream off of the surrounding fields. I tied on a size 16 San Juan worm and immediately pulled four fish out of the first pool including these guys!

 A few hundred feet downstream even more mud sullied the stream and I decided to head upstream instead. I tied up a bunch of SJ worms expecting to face runoff conditions. After landing a few little brownies over around 20 minutes the bwo's started poppin! I tied on a size 16 deer hair quill bodied mayfly emerger and started catching brookies like crazy.

The water was more clear further upstream but a good stain on the water concealed my presence well enough that I could cast from close range. The brookies kept coming.

 Around 230pm clarity drastically declined. I tied on the San Juan worm again and managed three or four more trout including this beauty!

 

I decided around 3pm to head home to tie flies and work on a fly rod. Stay tuned, I think this rod is gonna turn out really nice. Next weekend I'm headed to the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts to chase trout with some good friends, then I'll be on them caddis.