Mossy Creek is a very special stream. Picture a pristine gin clear stream in a lush meadow of wild flowers and the smell of fresh mint. With the rolling hills and the Blue Ridge mountains hanging in the backdrop, I feel like I'm fishing in the Shire. It's probably good I didn't discover fly fishing until my last year at JMU because with streams like this in the area, I may not have graduated.
Mossy is by far one of the toughest limestone streams I've ever fished. Right up there with the Letort, Big Spring, and DePuys. Tough back cast, thick underwater vegetation, gin clear water, hundreds of micro currents and not to mention highly pressured public water and very discriminating trout. If you actually hook a trout on a dry and keep him out of the stream bed moss on 6X, that's a good day in my book.
I ventured to this stream early for arguably the most famous hatch - the morning tricos. After a long sleepless night with the twins and a two hour drive, I arrived later than I wanted. When I got onto the stream around 9:30 am - the tricos were pretty much done. I was a little bummed, but I made my way up the stream head hunting for the last few rising fish. Without any rise forms, you'll never see a fish on this stream. They just seem to materialize out of the moss and go right back. But I did eventually find one really good fish working the surface intermittently and he was my guy. I watched him at the tail out of this pool for about 10 minutes before thinking about making a cast.
I wasn't sure what he was taking, but I figured after eating trico spinners all morning, he wouldn't pass up my CDC spent wing. After getting my game plan together, I slowly crawled into a downstream position and prepared my upstream cast. The key was making the cast right into the exact micro current the trout was lying in, but not too far upstream as to line the trout with my fly line. With a 12' leader, that meant putting it 4-6' above the fish. I made a couple casts to the side of the trout and on the third cast put the fly only a foot above the fish. As it passed over his head, he slowly tipped up on his tail and inhaled the fly! Wow! My heart was about to beat through my chest. So cool. After keeping him out of the grasses, I was able to do the limbo under the electric cow fence and land this 17" wild spring creek brown.
I continued fishing, but never saw another fish rise. It was a little early for hoppers, beetles, etc and I just didn't feel like nymphing. I ended up hiking more and exploring with my day already being made on that first and only fish.
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| Awesome wild brown with red dipped tail and adipose fin...wearing a size 24 Trico spinner |
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| I took this underwater pic of that trout resting under the mossy bank with my iPhone |
