We have a blizzard coming in, according to the news we should get between four and eight inches and experience 60 mph wind. As bad as the wind was blowing this morning I won’t be surprised if it gets to 60 mph.
I used the sexy chironomid first and caught some so I changed to a purple leechasaurus. I tied another one this morning and added not only more weight but a black bead for the head. At first, to my frustration, the leech pattern would not sink at all and just stayed on the surface. I realized that the squirrel hair held onto hundreds of little air bubbles. I put the leech under water and worked the air bubbles out with my hand and that did the trick. I set my strike indicator some three feet above the leech and cast out. I thought the Pistol Pete was heavy, the leechasaurus is heavy, I think that a rod and reel should be able to cast the leech pattern out without any worries.
As with the Pete I was getting allot of strikes on the leech pattern but couldn’t set the hook. My first stripping technique that I used was just to reel in the leech with no play, I got strikes. There was one incident that was funny.
I’ve never set my strike indicator so far above a fly before, usually I set it about 18 inches above the fly. As I was reeling in leech parallel to the bank I noticed something bid in the water. I stopped reeling in my fly and whatever it was sank out of sight so I started reeling in again and I saw it again. I realized that what I was seeing was my leech pattern. As my leech came up out of the gloom of the water I could see that a small trout was following it. I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen trout follow my fly to the shore before only to lose interest and swim away. I’ve learned that when this happens if you jig your fly, add a little action to its movement, you can induce a strike and catch the fish. Unfortunately, the leech was too close to the shore for me to try this and the fish swam away.
So instead of just reeling in the fly I started striping it in. I used three quick tugs followed by a smooth pull and then another tug or two. I would break up the strip by occasionally stopping the strip altogether and just letting the leech settle. It worked great I got lots more strikes and even caught a few trout. I can’t wait to experiment more with the leechasaurus and the Pistol Pete.
On a side note the blizzard was a bust. Here in Roy it just snowed really hard and the wind blew but not 60 mph, more like 20. We only got a little over an inch, not impressed with my first blizzard. Tomorrow I will shovel the sidewalk, driveway, RV pad and then go fishing and freeze while I’m at it.
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