Monday, January 12, 2015

The walk and the reward... Part two


As Hatcher and I reach the top of the falls, we continue along the rough dark water and break into an open stillwater. A few fish are rising and we intend on spending more time on the upper stillwaters. But we take a few casts and catch a few trout around 10 or 11 inches. As I remember these fish were quite picky, one was extremely fat and quite dark in colour.

We then moved 130m upstream to the next stillwater which was a "p" shaped piece of water that was really only fishable from the inflow location. So we bushwhacked through the fir and spruce until we found ourselves at the inflow. On the left side of the inflow there was a long fallen tree that had a very deep hole under it. I tied on my #4 Mylar Minnow and took a cast, first swing a nice trout came up and grabbed it and I set the hook. It was a beautiful trout and as I took the hook out he swam away from my net and back into the run.

While Hatcher was fiddling with his gear I took another cast and hooked another trout, a bit bigger than what we caught to this point that day. It was a beautiful 12 1/2 inch gem as I netted him, I looked at Hatcher with a grin as I released the fish back into the tea stained stillwater. I then stepped away and Hatcher fished the whole inflow thoroughly and caught four or five trout on a #14 Blue Dun. Hatcher knew the mayfly was going to work as there was fly on the water today, but he didn't expect my streamer to do as well as it did. Before we left to move to the next stillwater, I took another cast under the dead tree and had a hard take, with no splash like the other fish took. He dogged down and as he came up I knew it was a good fish with a deep red belly, I got too excited and tried to horse him a bit. As he did the "brook trout roll" the hook popped out and he swam away...

We both laughed and enjoyed what had just happened but it was time to move upstream to the next stillwater. The next stillwater was about 200m upstream. It was very shallow on the lower end and very marshy along the edges, the barrens were to the left and a side hill to the right. We each caught a few fish on the way up to the inflow, I stayed on the side of the stillwater and Hatcher moved to the inflow. He caught a few brook trout there and I did really well on streamers casting into what I assumed was the bowl of the stillwater and retrieving back onto the flat. I hooked a few fish in the bowl, but most fish were boiling for mayfly right on the edge. We caught quite a few fish at that stillwater and were pleased with the beautiful colours, scenery and enjoyed each others company to explore this beautiful area.

The next stillwater was quite shallow and rocky, huge granite outcrops were visible protruding from the dark water. It was also quite long and with one big hole at the inflow that is where we fished. This was not a very productive stillwater. We both caught one fish at the inflow hole and moved on to the next stillwater which was not far. This stillwater was the closest to the lake and after this the stream had a very high gradient to the lake. As we got to the pool, fish were on the mayfly hard right at the inflow and into the back end of the stillwater. This water was very productive, catching about 8 fish each in this area. I did well on my mylar minnow downstream but I had put it away and tied on my hot head bugger as Hatcher continued to catch fish with his Blue Dun in size 14. I did really well on the hot head, but changed to a #6 wardens worry. Which I caught a few more fish on, all these fish had deep red bellies, I assume full of insects. Hatcher no doubt hit the hatch perfectly today, but I did really well on my streamer flies also...

It was late in the day and we decided to head back and fish the stillwaters on the way back. We were catching fish through all the stillwaters until we go to the second. We knew there was an old cut trail that snaked through the fir and onto an old log road system, than had quite a few jig roads off the sides. We used my iPhone's GPS to navigate the old road system and found we were only one km walk from the truck and an easy walk. As we walked back we talked about what good fishing we had that day and that we were going to do this again, stream y had treated us well that day....


We undressed from our waders, and drove back to the camp to tell our friends how well we did, turns out everyone else did quite well also. We learned our friend the "butt-slinger" had hooked two 13+ inch trout on a muddler minnow, catching the biggest fish that weekend. It was a great weekend as friends got together and did what the enjoy doing the most, telling fish stories and fishing. I cannot wait until next year to spend another weekend with a great group of friends who have a passion about trout and fly fishing like I do...

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