14 Trout in One Short Afternoon?

Yesterday I broke a record. I caught 14 stockers in one afternoon, all in the same stretch. They were stocked 3 days ago--Friday (I caught on Sunday). The browns far preferred spinners. The brook trout only took flies. Browns did, too, but the brook trout were surfacing on occasion (I thought they were brook only on the surface--but today I was proven wrong). The browns were seemingly lurking deep. One of the two browns I got on a fly was a small one that was literally a foot from the bank.

 You can see the "statistics" in that rudimentary table above.

I started out with the spinner to see what I could find. And got a rainbow and two browns. That happened very fast. So then I went and worked my fly rod with the green wooly bugger (it became damaged later). That and the brown wooly bugger did theit trick so I was 3 and 3.

Moving up the river 50 yards, I was having no luck with my fly rod. I fished the weird looking green/red one at right, as well as a large minnow streamer (the ones that I have shown in previous posts). Not even a touch. There was fast water, a seam each side, and pools. Lots of ways to find fish. Once I switched over to that yellow/black spinner, the fish became evident immediately. There were a lot of hits and grabs before I hooked into one. Having debarbed that one was a good idea. It came right out. Sure enough, the lure worked too.

After that pool was "tired" I went back downriver again and switched back to my fly rod. And immediately roll-cast to a rise and brought a brook char to hand. But the tide was rising and I wanted to get out to the rest of the water. And I was curious about my crazy fly, so I put three large splitshot abotu 6" above it on an ultralight spinning setup and hucked it out there. I lost count of the number of hits, takes, and misses (lost grabs). It finally brought another brook trout in. I should have kept with it, but was impatient to see if something else would work. And that turned out to be the green wooly bugger, again, but this time on the spinning rig. That was #13. It was right after #12 that I slipped and went in. Overtopped both hip boot, got my right arm in the water, and my wallet wet. I caught #13 on that wooly bugger while walking out of the water! 

I couldn't stop at 13 though. I emptied my boots, put them back on and got back to it but on yet another fly--again on the spinning rig. That little tiny orange number. It worked too. And with the air now at 38 it was time to get out of the cold!

Today I went back at lunch under a bright sun. Sure enough, I found a number of fish lurking in the shadows under the bridge.  Because of the success of that whacky green/red fly on the right, I tied a jig with the same pattern (albeit without the crazy wing, and with a deceiver tail made of genetic hackle).  It drew multiple fish out of the shadows.  I could see them following. At one point I saw 4 of them tailing it!  But they would not mouth it.


So then out of curiosity, I tied on one of those "Creme" spinner things with the little shad on one side and the blade on the other leg. First cast, same spot, watched a fish tail it, then mouth it--and I hooked up a brook char:




Then I saw some rises developing in the same places as yesterday. I put my jig back on. No luck. Nothing. Not a touch. Put that creme thing back on. 2 casts in I had two followers--all the way to within feet of me!  While they didn't spook, they definitely saw me, because they got to a point and stopped coming, turned into the current, hovered, then swam back.  Next cast I got another follow.  These however were browns. 

All in all it is fascinating to play with making flies and lures, and seeing the behavior--even though they are stocked trout and different from wilds and even holdovers.