Lots of morning fishing

I have to admit to fishing for a couple hours every morning this week.  I was mostly at Meadows Creek Pond in Roy but I also did some fishing at Steed and Syracuse Ponds.

I noticed two days ago that the water in Roy Pond was incredibly clea, r.  In some areas you could actually down 10 feet to the bottom of the pond.  I know from experience that on sunny days with clear water you use dark patterns.  I’ve been using black wooly leeches every morning that the water is clear and I have been catching some 40 trout a day.  Part of that catch included some albino rainbow trout.  Most of the catch included some brook trout also.  You can really tell when you hook a brook trout because they fight much harder than rainbows.  Brook trout also strike differently, smaller rainbow trout have a very quick grab and spit strike technique, if you don’t set the hook quickly you don’t stand a chance.  Medium sized rainbows grab and pull the fly, I have landed more medium sized trout than anything probably because of trout demographics in the ponds and the way they strike my flies.  Large rainbow trout seem to grab the fly in their mouths and swimming off, the effect is a slow steady pull of my fly line.  Brook trout on the other hand seem to hit my flies sideways.  This morning I caught three brook trout; two were about 14 inches and one close to 21 inches and they both struck the fly the same way.  All three times I noticed my fly line moving either against the current or faster in the current.  I think the brookies are taking the fly in their mouths and either swimming directly up or downstream with the fly in their mouths.  I have caught probably 40 or so brown trout and they seem to pop the fly.  I seriously wonder if an angler could identify a species of trout by the way they strike the fly or fight when hooked.

Yesterday my two new fly rod blanks were delivered in the mail.  I got a grey 6 weight and a dark blue 8 weight.  My reel, reel seat, cork, and other things have been ordered and are on the way.  I think I am going to build my 8 weight first because I want to fish for muskie and bass with it.  I ‘ll let you know my progress.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I am going to use wooly leeches again tomorrow for a couple of hours at Roy Pond.  Unfortunately, my wife is opening up the honey do jar and I don’t think there are any scraps of paper that say go fishing,

Woolies in Steed Pond

I rolled out of bed at seven this morning.  I slept great and feel like a million bucks.  I got lots to do today but I think I can squeeze in some fishing this morning.

Since I had lots to do I decided to fish close and headed to Steed Pond off 1000 W in Clearfield.  The weather was fair but the fishing was great.

I started off with zebra patterns under a strike indicator, nothing.  Egg patterns under a strike indicator, nothing.  Wooly leeches under a strike indicator, nothing.  I took off the strike indicator and started stripping in a black leech, nothing.  Changed to a brown wooly bugger with a long strip, one trout.  I shortened my strip and caught another trout.  I switched to a green wooly leech with a brass bead head and used a slow long strip.  Bam, five trout in 10 minutes.  I ended up hanging a brown wooly bugger 18 inches below the green leech.  I caught and caught about 30 trout in all before I had to leave.

It never ceases to amaze me how different the rivers and ponds are around here.  What works at Steed Pond today won’t work at Syracuse Pond until next week and worked at Roy Pond last month.  The same goes for different sides of a pond.  A grey scud pattern will catch fish all day long on the North side of Steed Pond but won’t work on the East side of the pond.  A fly or tandem fly setup that works on one area of a pond or river might not work at all if you move five feet!

Birthday Fishing

I haven’t really been feeling well lately and I’ve had to curtail my fishing.  I’ve not been feeling well for about three weeks now but that probably won’t stop me from fishing. 

Today is my birthday and the wife asked what I wanted to do today.  Steak, movie, and fishing.  So we had steak lunch, saw an early movie and dropped by Meadows Creek.

Wooly buggers and leeches were working great.  After some 10 fish I decided it was time to go because she was getting cold.  Its nice to get out and fish while my wife is there.

Swimming with the brassies

     Here’s a good story for ya.  I was at one of the outlets at Syracuse Pond and there was a rainbow trout swimming around just feet off the shore.  The trout was probably waiting for insects to drift out of the inlet.  Several other fishermen in the area had tossed flies and jigs at it but he wasn’t biting.  On a whim I tied on a brassie with the intention of letting it drift out of the inlet to the trout.  I tossed the brassie out into the lake near the swimming trout thinking I would get the fly wet first before I dropped it in the inlet.  Just as I was pulling the brassie up out of the water the big rainbow saw the fly and lunged at it.  I was surprised and immediately tossed the behind him.  When that fish turned towards the fly I jerked it several inches.  That’s all it took, he jumped on it and I landed him with a #16 brassie.  Here’s his photo. 

    I was catching them all day long on wooly patterns but its kinda neat that I caught him on a brassie.  I tied up 6 #16 brassies but until today had caught nothing on them.

Going fishing and checking the guides

     Well I got up this morning and decided to go fishing but first I checked the epoxy on the guides.  Bone dry!  I guess the ghetto mixer worked perfectly.  Check out this kewl looking fly rod.

    It was cloudy this morning and rainy but I’ve never been a fair weather anything, my Mom used to tell me that I didn’t have enough sense to come out of the rain.  She also used to tell me that I would catch my death of cold from getting wet in the rain.  Never understood that comment because how does the cold know if I am wet from rain, shower, or the swimming pool.  I could never understand how you could catch a cold from getting wet in the rain but not from swimming in a lake.  I guess those cold germs are pretty darn smart.

     I ended up catching 17 trout this morning while standing out in the rain catching my death of cold.  Nothing like killing yourself to catch some trout and it was awesome!  I was standing at the north end of Meadows Pond at the inlet.  You could see the albinos swimming around, they really stand out in the water but I couldn’t catch any of them.  I finally dropped a wooly bugger near them and slowly stripped it to the surface.  I had three albinos following it, when one of them hit the fly I was able to set the hook and land him.  Here is his portrait:

I ended up catching three of them and a whole mess of rainbow trout.

     This time of year is very special to me.  Its nice and cool down in the valley but the Rockies are still covered with snow.  Today there was no wind and it was cloudy but there was enough light that I could still see down in the water with my glasses to see the fish.  It rained every now and again but that just added to the atmosphere.  I love it right before it starts raining, you can smell the salty rain drops as they make their way down to the ground.  I think the falling drops disturbs the air because there is a slight movement in the air, you can see the ripples on the water and you know its going to rain.  When it first starts raining the trout will jump out of the lake and try to eat the splash the rain leaves on the surface of the lake, they probably think its bug hitting the water.  I am going to make sure I get as much fishing as I can in the next couple of weeks.

Got some guides done.

     I’ve been working on my fly rod yesterday and today.  I mounted the guides onto my fly rod with the thread.  Nice choice of colors, brown and gold.  I used the gold thread to highlight the brown and it turned out nice.  The guides that I decided to use are also gold so it worked out great.

     Last night after I finished threading the guides I put on three coats of color preserver and set them down to dry overnight.

     In the morning I loaded my ghetto mixer with some epoxy and started it going.  I let the epoxy mix five minutes.  My ghetto mixer is nothing more than a Craftsman cordless drill held up in a wooden bracket I whipped up from scrap pine I had from a previous project.  I drilled a 1/4” hole in the bottom of one of the plastic glasses I use for mixing epoxy (actually they are plastic shot glasses I found at a grocery store, I got 25 of them for 99 cents).  I placed a quarter inch bolt with a machine screw head into the hole of the plastic shot glass and bolted that together.  I put the end of the quarter inch bolt into my drill.  I loaded another plastic shot glass with the two parts of the epoxy and dropped in a 7/16” ball bearing in with it.  I used  a piece of duct tape to hold down the trigger on the drill and set it to turn at a very slow pace.  I put the glass with the epoxy into the other shot glass I had mounted into the drill and let it mix for five minutes.  I’ve been having tons of trouble mixing this epoxy since I started practicing putting on guides and threading.  Hopefully this will help with the mixing problem.

    After the epoxy mixed for the five minutes I applied it to the threads holding the guides down and then put the fly rod in my rod dryer and let it turn for three hours.  This is a picture of my rod dryer turning the fly rod with my rod threader in the foreground.

     Here’s a video of my workspace for making my new fly rod.

     After the three hours of drying were up I tapped on of the threads with my finger, man was it tacky.  In the past my inability to mix the epoxy left it sticky, even a week after I applied it to the rod, I’m hoping that the epoxy just needed more time to dry.  I will check it again in the morning.

Finally!

     OK, I was at Commissioner College taking some classes them morning when I got a text from my wife, my fly rod is here, finally!

     Turns out it was a little bit lost in the mail but I finally got it.  As soon as I got home I marked all the locations for the guides and found and marked the belly of the rod.  Starting Monday I will attach the guides.