It's been a discomfiting summer and fall. A bummer.
I stopped trout fishing in NJ back in June... it was just too hot and dry, and I didn't want to stress the local fish. For a few weeks warm water species filled the gap, but by early July even the bass and carp streams were too low and warm.
No problem, I could alway look forward to my big August fishing trip... this year, for the first time, an 8 day wilderness rafting trip in western Alaska. It took more than 30 consecutive days of rain to blow out one of the most pristine watersheds in the world, but we arrived by pontoon plane on about the 32nd day of rain (a record), and blown out it was.
A two day trip to Cape Cod last week resulted in no fish (One "old timer", uncomfortably close to my own age, but who claimed to fish on the Cape "every day" since the mid-70s, said the beach fishing this fall was the worst he can ever remember). As the guy at the fly shop explained it, the bait fish that hang out over the summer in the inlets and estuaries where you normally catch stripers and blues were killed by the high temps this summer. So there's no reason for predator fish to come-in this fall.
Back in NJ, streams have been perilously, hideously low. All through late August and September, we had sunny day after sunny day. Finally, last week we got some solid precipitation. A deluge, and then several more days of substantial rain fall. Enough to make me want to check things out.
So today I headed up to my favorite NJ wild trout stream. It's one I've fished perhaps 100 times. I know it intimately... there isn't a spot on 2 miles of stream frontage that I haven't fished, and every run, pocket, and pool that holds fish I know and remember. I always catch fish there, and in recent years, I usually catch a bunch.
But I was worried.
As soon as I arrived, I made a bee-line for one of my favorite structures. It's a small junction pool where a creek joins the "main" channel of this river. Keep in mind this is all pretty small. The creek is probably about 8 feet wide, and the main channel is, at most, about 20 feet. Average depth is only a few inches, even in "high" water, though some structures can hold as much as 4 or 5 feet of water. Though not today.
This junction pool happens to be at the far downstream end of the public access, and I think of it as the most reliable pool on the stream. On a good day, I've caught as many as a dozen fish here. 4-6 fish is more typical. I can't ever remember catching fewer than 2 or 3.
Until today.
Despite the last few weeks of rain, the water was low, as low as I can ever remember. Normally, the turbulence from the junction pool makes it impossible to see bottom here. But the low flows limited turbulence, and the deeper slots, normally knee depth, were only calf deep. Except in a very few places, you could see the bottom clearly.
I started with a hopper pattern and covered the entire pool carefully. Because of the low water, I stayed back in the tail and made long casts to the head of the pool. No matter. Nothing rose.
Normally these fish aren't particularly fussy. I switched to a parachute adams, which normally works just fine, unless the fish are really keyed into something else. Not today. On my first or second cast, there was a half-hearted take at the head of the pool by what appeared to be a reasonably-sized fish. I didn't hook him, though: the long cast, a little slack, and some brush overhanging the bank delayed my hook-set. Despite more than a dozen more casts, that was the only rise.
I didn't want to give up. So I switched flies again, this time to a #18 flash back pheasant tail nymph. Normally a deadly fly on this stream. Another dozen casts. A nearly imperceptible hesitation of my indicator led me to lift my rod tip. I could see a 3 or 4 inch fish wriggling on the end of my line, then wriggling off.
That was it. Two weak strikes. No fish. On the best run in the entire stream. Oh dear.
I kept the nymph on for the next half hour or so, fishing several more usually reliable structures. Nothing.
I then approached a wonderful, deep structure. This is the place where on April 19, 2009, during the early stonefly hatch, I caught 6 fish in a row all 12" or bigger, in about 6 casts. Today, after a dozen casts or so, I teased another weak take on the nymph by a 5 or 6" fish, which wriggled off like its predecessor. A few casts later and the nymph snagged on some roots. So I switched back to another dry fly, this time a #16, tan, goddard caddis. A 7" rainbow slammed the first drift. A survivor!
But that one fish was it.
3 or 4 more structures were blank. Then another deeper structure, and another 7" rainbow hit my drift.
Then another blank half hour. Then a 4" rainbow.
After losing my 3rd fly in about 6 casts, trying to stay low and long by the tail of another clear pool, I decided to call it a day.
3 fish in about 3.5 hours of concentrated fishing. Very sad.
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