Friday fishing foto - Story

Not what I was expecting...

When it comes to fishing in the mountain streams in the winter, I don’t set high expectations. Most of the trips are what I consider scouting adventures. I usually haven’t been out for a while and the trips are like visiting an old friend to see what has changed, reminisce about old times and just hang out for a bit. The trip to Ramsey’s Draft last Sunday was no different.

It was a bright and clear day, and when I arrived at the parking area at 11 a.m. the air temp was in the upper 40s. It wasn’t a lot warmer when I left at 3 p.m. The water temp was 41 degrees with the water level on the high side but certainly fishable. I didn’t see any bugs on the surface and didn’t expect to. This was going to be a dry dropper excursion.

The day lived up to my expectations. Meaning I didn’t expect much action and that was the case. I suspect if I wasn’t as lazy as I tend to be, I might have gotten more action with two nymphs and an indicator or tight lining. But I confess to not being enamored with that type of fishing. Frankly, catching a fish just isn’t the motivation it used to be. And yes, I’m lazy; I like what I like.

I approached the last pool I planned to fish and redid my rig while sitting on my favorite log. I tied on a size 14, tungsten jig head pheasant tail nymph behind a size 14 Rio Royal Dry Humper. The Humper is a humpy variant that uses foam in place of a deer hair body. It’s a great floating attractor pattern and indicator.¹ Since I wasn’t seeing or expecting any surface action, I didn’t need to imitate anything.

Rio Royal Humper. It’s in the for vice visual purposes, I didn’t tie it.

The water was crystal clear, and I could see the nymph traversing the pool. After a few passes with nothing to show for it, I shortened up my dropper tippet and started casting to a riffle-fed shallower section of the pool.

I made my first cast into the base of the riffles but far enough up so the nymph would appear to be knocked loose and swept down into the drop off. There was a brookie waiting and it slammed the humper. Needless to say I was shocked. I certainly hadn’t expected a brookie to eat a fly on the surface when I had seen nothing all day. I certainly wasn’t excepting it eat THAT dry fly.² I managed to recover quickly enough to set the hook and land the fish.

I like to think it was my reward for sticking it out on a very slow day. Days like this remind me of those days when I was playing golf, which I’m terrible at, and would hit a shot that made feel good enough to hit another. The nice thing about fishing is there are more reasons to be out there than filling a score card.

1. I’m also a fan of Stimulators and Madam Xs for the same reason.

2. Proving once again that it’s sometimes the odd ball fly that get’s the job done.