Education of a Trico Fisherman

I must confess that I can't ever remember fishing a trico hatch.  Well, maybe once.  With a guide.  On the East Branch. More than 10 years ago.

For some reason, about two years ago, I bought two dozen trico flies: a dozen each of a parachute tie, and the spinner.  I don't remember why.  Each dozen of the tiny #20 or #22 flies came clipped around the perimeter of a small square of white paper to keep them from tangling up.  Both squares were tucked inside a little plastic bag.  I confess they kicked around my desk for the better part of two years.  So when Todd invited me to fish the Tully ("It has a great trico hatch from about 7 to 9 AM."), I had to go searching for them.  Much to my relief, I found the bag buried under some old bills.  Perhaps that was a sign.  

Thursday night, I organized my fishing gear, finally finding a home for these flies in a box. I bought my PA license online.  And set the alarm for 5 AM.

Friday, I staggered out of bed, quickly dressed, made coffee in my french-press travel mug, and followed my GPS directions towards Reading.  At that hour all of the roads were completely clear, and I met up with Todd at a convenience store about a half mile from the Tulpehocken at 6:45.  Not bad.  

We drove down to the stream.  There were 3 other cars already parked there.  Geared up, and walked onto the bank.

The Tully is a tailwater, perhaps 100' wide, and fairly shallow.  Where we were fishing, known as the "Papermill Flats", the flow is nearly laminar, with almost no obvious structure.  The bottom is mostly packed gravel, which is easy to wade.  An occasional rock or sweeper provides a seam or two.  The smooth water was about knee deep where we walked in.  

The entire surface of the water was being dimpled by rising fish every few square yards.  Wow!

Three fisherman were working a junction pool just downstream from us.  Another fisherman was standing in the center of a smooth section of the Tully, about 150 yards upstream, making longish casts with a tight loop to dimples rising close to the bank.  

Todd, who'd fished the Tully for the previous two days, said that he was going to walk upstream of this other fisherman.  I found it hard to walk past so many rings, and decided to fish pretty much where we stood.  As he walked away, Todd offered some advice, "I found them pretty spooky.  You'll probably need to cast downstream to them."  Oh, dear.

I tied on one of the parachute tricos.  

It took me a while to get the hang of the downstream presentation.  You had to cast fairly close to the rise, as you wouldn't get much of a drag-free drift in the downstream direction.  Cast too close, however, and the fish would stop rising.    I tried some casts 3/4 upstream.  The fish stopped rising immediately.  I tried some casts straight across.  Same result.  Fortunately, there were enough rising fish that I could just wade upstream a bit and find some fresh targets.  Of course, I picked the splashiest, most aggressive rises.  Todd had been right: I needed to cast about 3/4 downstream to have any chance of getting a fish.  

But after a while, maybe 15 minutes, I realized I'd covered a number of fish quite well.  I hadn't put them down, but still, the fly wasn't getting any strikes.  I studied the water surface carefully, and realized there was pretty much a constant stream of tricos on the surface.  They were spinners!  Duh.  I changed pattern.

On about my 3rd cast with the spinner, I had a strike.  Set the hook, then noticed my fly line was looped around my reel.  I stopped for a moment to untangle it, and some slack got into my line.  When I lifted my rod tip a few seconds later, the fish was gone.  Still, a promising sign.

A few minutes later, I covered a splashy rise again, and triggered another strike.  This time, set the hook, and pulled in a 3" sunfish.  Huh.  Well at least the basic mechanics were now working.  I decided to walk upstream to share my experiences with Todd.  

"Oh, yeah.  Those splashy rises are always going to be little fish.  A trout will be sipping the hatch.  You should be able to see his back as he rises to them."  I wish I'd know it 45 minutes earlier.

I saw a sunken log in the water about 50 yards downstream, which created a little seam in which 2 or 3 fish were regularly rising.  As I got close enough to cast, I thought I saw a back, though I couldn't be sure given the glare on the water.

On the second or third cast, the fish rose to the tiny spinner fly, which I could just track as a white dot on top of the water.  I set the hook.  

A powerful fish shot downstream and ripped about 10 feet of line off my reel!  Mind you, I hadn't really thought about the drag on the reel prior to this moment, and it was set close to the minimum.  Still it was fun.  And surprising.  The fish kept pulling hard, and I walked backwards, palming the reel, to get him away from the sunken log.  After a minute or so he was under control and I reeled him in.  It was a fat 14 or 15" brown trout, with a hooked jaw.  A nice fish. 

Releasing him was a trick.  I don't fish with a net, and I try to avoid handling  fish.  As I stared down at him in the water, I couldn't see my little fly, and he broke off as I tried to follow the tippet down to my fly with my hand.  Then, as I tied on a new fly, the loop connector at the end of my fly line (which is about 10 years old) gave out.  I can only appreciate that it had waited until I'd landed the brown trout before giving it up.

It took me an other 15 minutes or so to catch up with Todd and sort-out stream-side repairs ("Just cut off the old connector and tie an overhand loop in the end of the line.")  Duh, of course.  But by now the hatch was over.  Where once the entire stream was dimpled, there was only an odd rise here and there.  I covered one, and pulled up another little sunfish.  A few minutes later, and the water was entirely quiet.

Still, a lovely time.  And an education.

#20 Flies

Saturday I found myself standing waist deep in the middle of the Delaware River, just upstream from the Calhoun street bridge, casting a #20 compara-dun adams to two tiny smallmouth rising steadily to steady supply of small bugs floating on top. Casting a 9 wt rod.  With 14 ft leader and 6x tippet.

Todd and I had set out for giant carp, but the only action we found were these little smallies.

Todd stood about 30 feet away from me, on the other side of the seam the bass were working, and we were both covering the same fish.  We only tangled flies once.  I will say my rod behaved itself better than I would have expected, and I had little trouble casting to the fish.  I never put them down for more than a minute or so, despite more than a dozen casts.  We both tried a couple of different flies.  Mostly the fish ignored both of our offerings.   In retrospect, a #20 rusty spinner might have been the ticket, though I never got the chance to try it.  Todd's #18 sulfer ultimately found favor, despite multiple refusals, and he ended up catching the two fish before it occurred to me to try still another fly.

Hot weather is truly here.  .

Harriman II

In Gravity's Rainbow,  Pynchon describes paranoia: "If the bastards get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about their answers."  Well, today, in Harriman, I never felt I was asking the right questions.

Perhaps it was my late start.  I'd intended to head off around 7, but June didn't get home last night until around 2 AM, and when I woke this morning, I turned over to get a few more winks rather than hopping into the car.  In the event, I didn't get onto the stream until nearly noon.

Perhaps it was the heat.  "Low 80s"  became mid 80s.  Making my late start even more problematic.

Perhaps it was my desire to explore more of the river.  I decided to skip all of the water I'd fished last week, and to explore the upper reaches.  While it wasn't obvious when I started, it was painfully obvious when I walked out that the best structures were in middle reaches of the stream, which I'd mostly skipped.

I did see a few large fish, in the first couple of structures I fished.  The water was low, quiet, and absolutely clear.  My first few casts spooked fish.   You could see a school of fish (mostly small dace, but with a few much larger shapes - obviously trout - mixed in).  They would scatter below my approaching line, then coalesce back to the center after it landed.

Then I lengthened my leader to about 14', which, on a small stream with small structures, made for challenging casts.  At least then I could cover a couple of nice fish without obviously spooking them, but they showed absolutely no interest in my dry flies.

My best shot at a nice fish was in large pocket, shortly after lengthening my leader.  The brown trout looked to be 14" or 15".  I could see it very clearly, holding comfortably in a V shaped slot between two boulders, in the gentle current.  The water was crystal clear, with almost no turbulence.

I crept up as close as I dared, about 25' behind him.  My only shot, as I saw it, was to launch a long cast (45' or so) to the very head of the pocket, to get my fly high into the current lane, and hope it would drift my fly through the slot.  Too low, and it would catch the current braid passing the wrong side of the right hand boulder.

I felt this was one of those casts which had to be right the first time.  With fish this spooky, your odds of catching go down about 90% with each cast.

In the event, I got off what I thought was a perfect cast, but my fly didn't drift.  Unfortunately, it had snagged some brush right at the head of the pocket.  The cast couldn't have been more than an inch or two long.  As soon as I pulled on my fly line - still gently I thought - the taught line pulled out of the water and the fish spotted it.  Spooked, it shot back towards me, then saw me, turned instantly and shot upstream past my line into the next pocket.

That was my last real shot, though I spent another 4 hours in denial.  After that, I didn't see another nice fish (for possible reasons, see above).

I did catch a lot of fish.  One pumpkinseed, and a ton of Dace.  No trout.

At least I was challenged.  For 5 hours.  I am nothing if not persistent.  No regrets.

Memorial Day Reflections

I always have mixed feelings about Memorial Day.  On the one hand, NJ wild trout fishing is usually close to peak (I think the early stone fly hatch in mid April is the only better time). On the other hand, you know that hot weather and diminished fishing is coming soon.  With the weather forecast for the high 80s tomorrow, and 90 degrees on Monday, I was anxious to get out today. 

I headed for T creek, my closest brook trout stream, leaving earlyish so I could be home for a real estate appointment at 3 PM.

Arriving at the stream a little before 11 AM, I tied on my "default" #16 adams, walked down to the stream, and cast into the first nice pocket I saw.  It was bowl-shaped, supported just enough flow to create some turbulence, and was mid-calf at the deepest point.  On my third cast, a truly lovely fish shot up to take my fly.  It was a fat, 11" brookie, one of the nicest fish you'll find on this stream.  Unfortunately, my camera didn't work (I hadn't seated the battery properly), so I didn't get a shot.  The picture below, taken after I'd sorted out the battery, is of a smaller fish, landed a few minutes later, a good inch or two shorter than the first one.

So while the first fish was perhaps the fish of the day (possibly equaled by a fish landed a couple of hours later), today was one of those magical NJ wild trout days when you're constantly catching fish.  Find the right structure (the very first was the archetype), cover it with a nice drift, and you were almost certainly going to raise a fish.  I don't remember a single refusal, except ones caused by drag in my presentation (and few of those).   One anxious 7" brookie swam off its line by about 3 feet to take my fly, slowly drifting in a foam line.

The largest fish turned out to be holding in the mid-sized pockets, like the first structure I had fished.  The bigger pockets would also hold fish - sometime five or six - but the biggest fish seemed to prefer a mid sized pocket all to themselves.  As it was, I must have landed 25 to 30 fish within 2 hours.  10 from two big pockets (roughly 5 each, mostly small), and then another 15 or 20 in 1's and 2's from other structures.

I stopped around 1, to head back for my appointment.  It had been enough.

Harriman

Exploring new water is always a tough thing to justify.  The local streams are so close and reliable, you know the new stream is going to give you a worse outing.   Dan and I sure experienced that last weekend. On the other hand, the local streams are so reliable, and by now I know them so well, that there's not a lot of challenge to them.

Last week I bought a season NY State license, so it freed me to do something I've been meaning to do for years, which is explore Harriman State Park.  I've hiked it several times, perhaps 15 years ago, but never fished it.  It's just over the border, and time-wise, it's about 1:45 from Trenton, about the same as driving up to Van Campens.  I'd heard there were some nice streams there.  So I went online, and found really very little, except a 5 year old posting on a fly fishing board from a guy who claimed to live up there, who listed two of his favorite streams.

I found them both on a map.  One really wasn't my style:  it had road access its entire length.  The other required a hike in, and ran through an isolated valley.  Perfect!  It had the added benefit of being in the far south of the park, making it even closer.  Yeah!  So today, after my appointment in Princeton this morning, I headed up 206 instead of coming home, and found myself at the trailhead around 1.

The stream was steep, and held a fair amount of water.  I walked in about 30 minutes, then started to fish the pocket water.  It reminded me of T Brook, only with about twice the flow.

Unfortunately, no fish.  I tried a bunch of flies... started with a Cahill.  Switched to a BHPT.  After about an hour I landed a 3" green dace.  An hour later, I picked an inchworm off my hat, and switched to an inchworm dry fly.  But nothing.

I was about 3 hours in, with still only the dace in the credit column.  I was thinking of giving up, when I came to the junction of a major trib...  the junction pool didn't look like much, but just above the junction, the gradient of the main stem eased noticeably.  I tossed the inchworm into the very first pocket above the junction, and was stunned when a feisty, 10" brown trout slammed the fly.  I was actually startled by how strong he was.  He pulled upstream about 20 feet, and I gave line for fear he'd break my 6x tippet.  Very cool.  This trout wasn't a giant, but would count as a big fish on any of NJ streams I normally frequent.

(Below: The first fish.  You can see the inchworm fly in his mouth)

Why the steam below the trib didn't seem to hold any trout, I don't know.  Perhaps it floods too frequently.  All I know is it started to act like a lovely trout stream as soon as I got above it.  (Below, the stream, just above where I caught the first fish)

It didn't take long for me to take a second fish... this one another strong, wild brown trout.  This turned out to be a solid, fat 12".  He also slammed the inchworm.  He was holding in the quiet water, just right of the medium sized round rock in the middle/left of the photo.

I then tried to work may way up the slow pool you see in the photo, and around the bend.  The inchworm was now waterlogged, kept sinking, and snagging bottom.  So I spent about half an hour trying not to spook fish as I slowly waded in to free my fly, cast again, snagged again.  All the movement killed the fishing.  So I changed to a #14 parachute adams, which I figured would float reliably.

After making my way up to the next big pool, I took an even LARGER fish, a good 13", on the adams.  When he felt the hook, he shot into the air about 3',  then spun around the pool at a high rate of speed until he exhausted himself.  On my light little 4 weight, it was all I could do to keep him under control and away from some snags. 

Once I released him, I farted around this pool for a while, trying long casts, double hauling my little rod (which is NOT its preferred casting mode).  However, the water was so still that any movement towards the back was sure to spook any fish waiting for me.  I missed one strike from what flashed like another big fish, then caught a little pumkinseed.  Then things seemed to go dead.

According to the topo map, there's probably another mile of good water, but the shadows were getting long.   I reeled up, and started to hike back to the car.  I saw some rising fish in a large pool close to the parking lot, where the gradient had eased again.  I hovered for about two minutes, watching the water, and debating whether to give them a shot.  Had I seen another rise, I might have been tempted, but it went quiet for the moment.  I decided it was getting too late, and hurried on to the trailhead parking lot.

It was 6:05 by the time I stripped off my gear and started the car.


All in all, while it started slowly, it ended totally satisfactorily.  Next time, I'll hike right above the junction, and start fishing from there.    Judging from my sample, the fish in this stream are much larger than any wild trout stream I know in NJ.  Definitely worth a return visit.  Of course, it's also the sort of water where you'll be miserable if you're fishing behind anyone.  One fisherman, even a good one, will ruin the fishing for anyone behind for hours. Still, it seems worth the risk, especially if you can head up there on a weekday.


It's the sort of stream that keeps us exploring.  I can't wait to go back.

Hard Work

Fishing trip this weekend turned out to be hard work.  My annual pilgrimage to Shenandoah didn't work out this year, so we decided to hit a couple of wild trout streams in the Catskills.

Saturday, Dan and I hopped in the car at 7 AM and reached the Vernooy Falls trailhead a little after 10.  It's 1.8 miles and 700 vertical feet up to the falls, which we accomplished with little fuss.  Moving up and downstream is another matter.  There's really no trail, so you're bushwhacking through a pretty steep gorge.  (Note:  I wasn't in a photographing mood, so these photos were taken off the net).

The tone for the weekend was set in the first half hour when a largish rock give way as Dan descended into the riverbed.  He clattered down (hard) and snapped the tip off his rod.  Fortunately, he wasn't hurt, just shaken, and ultimately sore, but it cast a pall over the activities.

Of course, catching a few dozen wild brook trout might have changed our mood, but it wasn't to be.  Surprising to me, we each caught only one fish.  It wasn't for lack of trying...  below the falls, the habitat seemed a little marginal (pretty shallow), but above the falls, which we explored in the afternoon, the habitat seemed superb.  There were certainly plenty of flies on the water.  I saw caddis, cahills, blue quills, and hendricksons, and tried them all at different times during the day.  I fished on the surface, and nymphed.  I saw only one rise, and had only three strikes all day.  These were all in the same structure (a moderate pool below the falls).  The strikes were little brookies nipping at my nymph, and I managed to land one of them.  10 minutes later, Dan took another carbon-copy fish in the same structure using a parachute adams.  That was it.

I frankly don't understand it.  Either these fish are unbelievably spooky, or there just weren't very many of them.  I would think it's the latter.  Hard to believe they would have been THAT spooky, as the water was fairly high, and turbulent, so I would have thought it would have covered us pretty well.  Also, on streams with spooky fish, you can usually SEE them running away from you, at least occasionally.  Certainly, in 5 hours, if it was a matter of spookiness, I'd have expected to see more fish signs.  But I didn't see a single spooked fish.

After a night in the EconoLodge in Monticello, we hit the Neversink Gorge Unique area on Sunday.  This is a 2.5 mile walk, descending about 750 vertical feet.

Talk about a constrast!   Here the Neversink is about 150 feet wide.  The water was a lot higher than shown in this photo...   where we started fishing, the water averaged about knee deep, with slots and runs anywhere from 3 to 6 foot in depth.  STRONG current.  The kind of place where you needed a wading staff to get anywhere, and where you fear for your life if you slip on the irregular, bouldery bottom.  I've waded in one or two tougher places (at least the rocks here weren't particularly slick), but not many, and not recently.

Two twenty-something fishermen showed up on the opposite bank soon after we started.  They crossed over to talk (oh, to be 25 years old again!  Now that I'm 50-something, I wouldn't dream of crossing the stream where they did).  One of the guys pulled out 3 fish from the deeper slots in the middle of the stream, as I watched his slow approach.  When they finally arrived, we got into a nice conversation.  They seemed to be classic trout bums (You fish here often? Yeah, this is my third time on the stream this week).  They checked out my nymph rig, and opined I needed heavier flies, and suggested going to larger sizes.  The guy who'd caught all the fish pulled out 3 different nymphs from his fly box which he handed me, and swore would fix me up.

They moved on, picking up another fish in the next pocket, and were soon gone.  These were the only other human beings we saw all day on what is a superb, if challenging, trout stream.   If it were more accessible, I suggest we'd have seen a couple of dozen fishermen on a typical stretch of a Catskill Stream of this quality on a beautiful Sunday in mid May.  It was glorious to be alone there.

I had NO luck at all with their flies.  I'm usually a very good nympher (though I rarely fish such a large stream),   I lost two of his flies (which were really heavy!) in the second slot I fished, as they jammed into the bottom of a slot too deep for me to retrieve.  They had recommended tungsten bead heads, which are super heavy but I don't carry in my box (they're useless on small streams). I suspect my nymphs just weren't getting deep enough fast enough.  After 3 hours, I was still fishless.

In desperation I changed to a full sinking line, and tied on a zoo cougar, my favorite streamer, which is a yellow sculpin pattern with a lot of flash.  That turned out to be inspired, as I was immediately rewarded with a strike, and several chasers.  It was also great fun double-hauling the line to reach the far bank, 70 feet from where I was standing.  So at least I was entertained, and ultimately, after several more short strikes, managed to land a fat, 14" brookie which slammed the cougar as it flashed past his holding spot, just in front of a boulder.

So at least I wasn't skunked. 

This is the kind of stream that rewards experience.  I suspect next time (armed with a larger supply of heavy nymphs, and mentally prepared for the wading), I'd do OK.

The walk out was a long 2.5 miles and 750 foot climb.  Mosquitos were making it a slow torture.  I didn't want to goop with up DEET, since I figured I'd be in the car shortly.  Instead, I suffered.

This weekend was hard work.

Mother's Day

My wife was committed all day (church, then work), so we celebrated Saturday... flowers and husband-cooked dinner with a nice bottle of wine.  So Sunday, Mother's Day, I was free to fish.

Arrived at the "local" brook trout stream around 12:30.  The weather certainly didn't seem auspicious.  Barely 50 degrees, and windy.

Hoped that the fish would still rise to a dry fly.  Tied on the same #18 adams parachute I'd had success with a couple of weeks earlier.

The first structure was a nice deep pool... large for this stream.  No joy.  Decided to try one more structure before abandoning hope for the adams.

Next structure was not so deep... mid-calf instead of over-the-knee.  And a nice fish took my fly on the second drift. 

This established the pattern for the next two hours.  It was challenging in that the structure and presentation had to be just right:  large enough, but not too shallow, not too deep, with a slow current.  You needed pretty much a perfect, dead drift through the feeding lane.  Get all the ingredients right, however, and a nice fish would rise.  Typically 8-9", which is a more than decent size for this stream.

Fish of the day came from an overhanging boulder.  My first drift flashed a big fish, but microdrag caused him to miss the take.  While I had little confidence that he'd rise again, I waited a minute or so, then shortlined a few "prefect" drifts over the spot where he'd risen.  It was satisfying when he slammed the third drift.  Seemed to do a 180 degree spin as he shot out from underneath his boulder, flew a couple of inches into the air, and splashed onto his back before diving back to the depths.  Nice strong pull on my line.  A fat 12" fish!

Altogether, about a dozen fish in two hours.  Actually the take rate seemed to increase over time, as the sun sneaked out and the warming water encouraged the fish to be even more active. 

I'd had to change flies because a fish had chewed the hackle off my original fly.  My knot on my new fly gave way when I pulled the nose of a fat 10" brookie out of the water.  I took this as a sign, and reeled up.  Once I feel I've "figured it out", I don't need to keep catching.

I changed into hiking shoes, and went for a delightful walk for the next 90 minutes, with nice steep trails, and lovely views of the S Branch valley.

Home by 5 PM.  A perfect "Mother's Day."