As the Snow Falls, So Goes the Catch Rate

It is interesting how quickly things can change this time of year. The water has been steadily cooling, even as the weather was quite moderate. But because water is a peculiar substance, the magic number of 39 comes to be significant: that's the temperature at which water is most dense. At this point, all further cooling produces lighter water--which floats and therefore freezes, and quickly.

When the cold snap hit, we got snow--two batches of it, and a 10 degree night in between. On Monday last week, we were still in the relatively moderate weather--then Tuesday had the somewhat warm rainy day, and Wednesday the cold. I had caught a trout and a pickerel on Monday. On Tuesday a friend of mine and I could not convince the trout but he got the pickerel. After the first snow, I caught a trout yet again--but changed to a different fly. The water had not yet frozen. I fished it the same way as the recent trout: with a small shot, cast across, drifted, then twitched as it starts to swing.

But On Saturday and Sunday (today) I've had no luck. All I succeeded in doing today was spooking not one, but two fish, on the first cast.

Sometimes discipline is a good thing. Which I did not possess today. The plan had been to tie on one of the smaller Sizes of flies I tied today (starting at 16, then 12) to cast to openings in the ice on the creek. But when I took my rod out of the tube, there was a size 6 brown streamer pattern on and I left it there for the first cast. This was a mistake, as it landed with a big kerplop on quiet water, and two fish spooked out from directly below and swam away. As if to punish me, I snagged it in the ice shelf and lost the fly.

I stayed another 30 minutes or more fishing in vain. It is generally better to simply abandon a pool after screwing it up like that.

The size 12 flies are on the left. There are others I didn't take a photo of yet.