Virginia Brookie Fishing

Spent the afternoon tossing dry flies to eager little brookies in Virginia while visiting the family.  I saw Blue Quills and a few Quill Gordons.  Happiness is spring time mayflies and a hike with my good loyal dog, Cooper. 

Afternoon fly fishing

Fishing to some rising fish on the Yough with a good friend.

Happy 4th - bike n' fish

I only had a few hours to run to the Yough at early morning hours and I was chomping at the bit to give her a run.  No drift boat, no day long commitment.  Just a quick few hours via the bike with my best (canine) friend.  I fished hard and threw some big streamers hoping to go big or go home.  I had a few medium trout grab the fly which made the day.  I missed a nice one (obviously), which will keep me coming back.

Yough River fix

I've been chomping at the bit to get on the Yough, but been just a little busy with the new baby.  With some reinforcements at the home front, I was finally about le get a float under my belt with my father-in-law and Cooper.  We landed a few trout, but this was mostly just a cruise down the scenic river gorge.  We hit the Memorial Day weekend rubber hatch, so we had a few rafts bumping us on the way down, but that is just part of the drill at this point.  Probably best to avoid these high traffic days if you can.

Lunch break!

Grannom Caddis on the Little J

 

 

 

I met my good friend Tom on the Little J for the famed grannom caddis hatch.  For many reasons, this is probably my favorite hatch.  I'll never forget my first experience walking right into this hatch and not having a clue what was going on.  It was insane!  The tough part of this hatch is timing it right.  Its a relatively short hatch and one can easily miss it.  This day, the bugs were not at peak levels, but were pretty dang good. 

 

It was a cold morning (27 degrees) and the grannoms didn't start emerging until around 10 am.  By 10:30 am, the run above me looked like popcorn was popping out of the water with these bugs emerging.  What a cool sight to see!  There wasn't a ton of dry action so I stayed sub-surface and absolutely had a field day.  It was almost every cast at one point.  I could watch the trout feeding in the current and it was a bona fide feeding frenzy on the helpless caddis pupa.

 

It was really a nice day to be on the water.  There weren't many people and it felt like we had the stream to ourselves.  We ventured upstream and checked out some new water that I had not fished ever before.  We fished a solid 6 hours and had a couple cold Dales Pale Ale waiting for us at the truck.  I look forward to this hatch again next year.

 

 

The train trestles add to the character

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom took this picture at lunch while I was casting to a rising trout.  The big trout was right where you expect him to be ... right in front of the big flat rock (@ 11 o'clock).  I made a nice cast and started feeding fly line until the cdc & elk hair caddis drifted carelessly into his feeding lane.  Without hesitating he sucked it down.  At this point, I had what felt like about 30 feet of slack line I need to bring tight, and needless to say, he was gone...

 

Escape to the Little Juniata

 

Funny thing happens when you aren't able to fish as much as you always have in years past....you appreciate it more.  You appreciate just taking the first step in the water and making that first cast.  Of course, it always nice when you catch and fish and you can tell yourself, 'you still got it'  haha.  But its a pretty nice place to be in when all you care about is just being right there and enjoying.

Water was ~700 CFS.  Greenish perfect tint.  Caught couple on heavy nymphs.  stones, vladi.