Jitterbug
11-04-2007, 04:54 AM
Today was a first for me in two ways actually. I landed two Browns on a fly I tied and I also experienced an awesome BWO hatch and managed to catch some on top during that! What a blast!!! :-)
I got on the water around 4. There were small BWOs flying around me everywhere on the walk down to the river. The past week has been pretty hectic at work and home for me so I needed some fishing therapy badly. As I stood at the water's edge I was startled by an enormous rise from a large fish about 20 yards upstream from me. My adrenaline soared and I new this was going to be a good time. Boy was I not disappointed! I tied on a small parachute BWO dry and trailed it with an RS2. I started casting and the wind was blowing upstream which made my back cast rather difficult. I started getting rises on my BWO cast after cast... no hook ups though. Kept at it and finally... FISH ON! It was small but still fun. I kept catching smaller 10" to 12" browns throughout the hatch. Then it stopped! I decided to cross the river and give it a shot from the other side. Immediately... FISH ON! :)
Now that I had gotten my "FISHING FIX" I decided to switch it up a bit and tie on one of my flies that I tied. The one I chose was a size 6 woolly bugger in black and brown with crystal flash in the tail and used as the rib material. I began dead drifting the fly with no use of an indicator. Not much luck until... I started experimenting. Half way through a drift I gave it a good twitch and then immediately felt a bump back. Set the hook and it was on again... FISH ON! The fish went crazy and started jumping and running up and down the river. Got the fish up to me and it was a nice brown in the 15" range. I continued fishing with not much success... until... I started experimenting again. ;)
It was getting late and there was not much light left. I noticed what seemed to be some midges starting to hatch. I decided to try a down and across swing retrieve with my woolly bugger. I've not had ANY success with this approach before but I thought I'd give it another shot.
First cast and after the first twitch I felt a bump. Set the hook and didn't connect. Kept at it a couple more times and then was about to cast back upstream and... WAM! This fish didn't feel that big at the beginning of the fight but then it bolted up stream, right toward me and I could tell it was a nice size just by the way it muscled through the current. It gave me a few good jumps and then it was through. NICE BROWN! I measured it between the first two guides of my rod and then measured that when I got home. Turned out to be just a little more then 18". I know now that if I use crystal flash material for a rib material on a woolly bugger it's not going to hold up very long! This fish tore my fly apart! I think I'll try to recover this fly because it did such a grrrreat job for me today!
All in all... GREAT day on the water and I can't help but wonder if the explosive rise at the beginning of my adventure was this same mammoth Brown I came in touch with at the end?!
Happy Fishing everyone!
Jitterbug
I got on the water around 4. There were small BWOs flying around me everywhere on the walk down to the river. The past week has been pretty hectic at work and home for me so I needed some fishing therapy badly. As I stood at the water's edge I was startled by an enormous rise from a large fish about 20 yards upstream from me. My adrenaline soared and I new this was going to be a good time. Boy was I not disappointed! I tied on a small parachute BWO dry and trailed it with an RS2. I started casting and the wind was blowing upstream which made my back cast rather difficult. I started getting rises on my BWO cast after cast... no hook ups though. Kept at it and finally... FISH ON! It was small but still fun. I kept catching smaller 10" to 12" browns throughout the hatch. Then it stopped! I decided to cross the river and give it a shot from the other side. Immediately... FISH ON! :)
Now that I had gotten my "FISHING FIX" I decided to switch it up a bit and tie on one of my flies that I tied. The one I chose was a size 6 woolly bugger in black and brown with crystal flash in the tail and used as the rib material. I began dead drifting the fly with no use of an indicator. Not much luck until... I started experimenting. Half way through a drift I gave it a good twitch and then immediately felt a bump back. Set the hook and it was on again... FISH ON! The fish went crazy and started jumping and running up and down the river. Got the fish up to me and it was a nice brown in the 15" range. I continued fishing with not much success... until... I started experimenting again. ;)
It was getting late and there was not much light left. I noticed what seemed to be some midges starting to hatch. I decided to try a down and across swing retrieve with my woolly bugger. I've not had ANY success with this approach before but I thought I'd give it another shot.
First cast and after the first twitch I felt a bump. Set the hook and didn't connect. Kept at it a couple more times and then was about to cast back upstream and... WAM! This fish didn't feel that big at the beginning of the fight but then it bolted up stream, right toward me and I could tell it was a nice size just by the way it muscled through the current. It gave me a few good jumps and then it was through. NICE BROWN! I measured it between the first two guides of my rod and then measured that when I got home. Turned out to be just a little more then 18". I know now that if I use crystal flash material for a rib material on a woolly bugger it's not going to hold up very long! This fish tore my fly apart! I think I'll try to recover this fly because it did such a grrrreat job for me today!
All in all... GREAT day on the water and I can't help but wonder if the explosive rise at the beginning of my adventure was this same mammoth Brown I came in touch with at the end?!
Happy Fishing everyone!
Jitterbug