When the Bluegills aren't Biting.

A fishing story. Mostly true, in the John Geirach veign.

When the bluegills aren’t biting we fish trout. Sounds a little backwards, but on this day the phrase was rolling around in my mind as I drove away from a recently hot bluegill lake and off towards trout water. Trout water as it were was two rivers that day, well the first was a definite stream and it hardly even warrants a mention. However for nostalgias sake let’s say this was the first stream I ever chased trout on. Introduced to it by a friend years ago; we chased respectably sized Brook Trout with the venerable hook and worm rigs that would be the norm for many years until I was bitten by the fly fishing bug. Now, I suppose some fly fisherman know but most won’t admit that there is a bit of a trick to hooking a trout on a worm. When you feel old Mr. Brook Trout giving those snappy, recognizable tugs on the line, tip the rod towards him open the bail and say the rosary or whatever mantra gives the fish a few seconds to get the worm into his mouth and then close that bail, set the hook and fire off a phrase like “there he is” or “feels like a nice one”.  This is not a great way to play the catch and release game but remember this was in my youthful days when the only releasing that was done was into a bag of flour and season salt followed by a refreshing dip into the 250 degree cast iron bath. And I’d be lying if I told you I still don’t enjoy eating the occasional trout. I was out fished that day;  I simply couldn’t get my head around letting the fish take the worm for several seconds or even ten to fifteen, I was too used to setting the hook in my usual ways. I guess this was the start of my education in trout fishing. Being made a fool of by an 8 inch fish is something you just get used to.  The success of that day did not matter though; I was initiated into a whole new way of fishing that suited me perfectly. Later we celebrated, as we still do to this day, by chasing bites of pan-fried trout and potatoes with slugs of ice cold beer.

However great the fishing was on that stream on that particular day in history it was not looking too appealing as I strung up my 4 weight and opted for an olive colored wooly bugger, the fly fisherman’s version of throwing worm or a spinner or a moose steak into a pack of sled dogs.  The wooly bugger is an indicator, if trout are in a hole they seem to not be able to pass up a slash at it. They simply can’t pass up the old ‘bugger, it’s a deadly fly in every way. Unfortunately for me, I really don’t like to fish them much. Dry fly fishing is much more challenging and consequentially rewarding. You don’t’ catch as many fish but when you do the sweetness of it is hard to explain. But, I am getting ahead of myself here; there is a nice plunge pool at the culvert where I was parked and I ran my ‘bugger through it a dozen times to no avail. I will spare you the gory details but this process was repeated at a few other relatively decent holes as I moved downstream , punctuated only by the odd tangle with a tree on an errant back cast and the excited gobbling of an amorous Wild Turkey. I drove away from the river after only a short time without looking back. The most memorable part of my expedition had been the turkey responding to my well practiced owl hoots. Now, as I sit in my armchair, sipping lukewarm coffee and writing this I feel a pang of regret. I shouldn’t have fished that stream. I have tainted the memory of that day somehow by exposing the reality of the situation; the trout we caught that day were most likely fresh out of the stocking truck hungry for anything that resembled food to their hardwired instinctive minds. That would certainly account for their hunger and excitability. I believe I will curtail my prying into memory banks for now, before more damage is done. Stocked or not stocked they got me hooked on trout fishing and for that I must thank them.

The second stop that day was a river, it was called a river on my map and I believe I will consider it a river too, however it is where I fished only maybe 15 or 20 feet wide at the most, relatively shallow and gravelly. I almost want to call it a stream, and to be honest I am wont to call every river a stream because of the mystical, romanticism of it. River or stream debates notwithstanding, I donned my gear and set out walking from the parking lot back up the gravel road I drove in on. My plan was to walk downstream to a bend that neared the road and fish my way back up. With dry flies this time. Planting my feet on the gravel of the stream I surveyed the river above me. Immediately I noticed a small number of medium sized mayflies dancing their way along above the river. I chose a nicely tied a mayfly pattern and thought, well this will be almost too easy. Working my way upstream I spotted some small rises in a chute underneath a small, rocky stretch.  I peppered the water with my mayfly to no avail, tied on a small parachute Adams, again nothing. I tried an Elk Hair Caddis, nothing.  After a particular stellar and noteworthy cast that slapped the water like a fly-swatter I decided to move on. My next half-hour was very similar, small stretches with rising fish and small hatches happening. Desperate to find the magic button, I tied on fly after fly only to have them all spurned by the obviously picky trout. Working my way upriver I stepped out and walked along shore to see if I could get a sense of what the trout were feeding on.  Walking on a path littered with pine needles I kept one eye on the river and one eye on the trail and as I came over a rise I saw a sight that made me smile; the bend that I came here to fish; the bend where I first caught a trout on a dry fly after many attempts on various rivers and spring ponds. Although it was hard for me to admit, I came to this river for that bend, for that 50 foot stretch of river. I dipped back downstream and made my way across to the other side, worked my way back up and entered the river. The reason I first came to love this spot was that there is a nice muddy bank about halfway across the river where a person can kneel or sit in the mud and have some room to back cast.  Kneeling on this mud bank you can thread your back cast past the grabby Hemlocks and Prickly Ash and fire casts out 25 feet to achieve a decent dead drift. Kneeling gives a low profile that allows you to fish the deep, shaded bend without spooking fish. Something that is priceless on small water.

The fish were in this hole, and it didn’t surprise me. Again they were periodically rising to something I could not determine. And again I fired cast after cast and perfect drift after perfect drift only to have them ignored. Small rises would happen almost constantly and occasionally a larger fish, most likely a Brown would slurp the surface and leave me shaking with anticipation. The fly that finally got their attention was the fly that had worked the last time I fished this particular bend (and I am not sure why it took me so long to tie it on), a very simple fly called the Grey Ugly. This is not a particular imitation but what fly fisherman would call an attractor fly, it doesn’t represent a particular insect; it has the look of a generic insect and I guess the name says it all, it’s grey and it’s fairly ugly. The trout however did not seem to care, on my second cast I a fish hit the fly. On my third cast I hooked a tree behind me. Thanking god for 4x tippet I straightened my gear out, promised myself I would pay attention to what was behind me and fired several more semi- perfect drifts out into the current. Fish after fish would hit the fly but I couldn’t hook them. Thinking I might be setting the hook too soon I was beginning to feel frustration mixed with elation, it’s a familiar feeling for me. I kept at it and finally drifted one right over the center of the run, seeing the take I set the hook and felt the familiar weight on the end of the line. My heart soared……. for one second. As I said out loud “there he is” to no one in particular the fish rocketed to the bottom of the pool and immediately spit the hook into the nearest submerged tree.

There it was; it was over so fast I could hardly tell what had happened. Success for the day, I had hooked a large fish and had many more hits on a hand tied fly. As I walked away from the river and back to my car I was tired and weary, my clothes smelled of deet and I couldn’t have been happier. The Bluegills would be hungry another day, I am a Trout fisherman by God!