Pennington Creek and The Blue were both a little high, but fish were caught though all were small. Catching is better than not, and given the rough work week a lot of hiking and a decent amount of fish caught and lost, it was a nice outing.
I started my excursion south of the hatchery seeing some nice rises from the local inhabitants and almost stepping a huge Koi that I wish I had seen in the high water. Unfortunately the wading south was getting tough and high so I had to turn back to north where I had been before.
While getting above these falls I took a nice flip and crashed down on my new Sage Smallmouth Rod. I almost cried as this rod is becoming my favorite rod, and while not all the casts are pretty, you can do some crazy things with the rod, and for up close and personal settings it is deadly accurate. The rod was fine but the cheap Sage reel I bought to go on it is not and has a nice tick sound as the spool catches on the frame. Since the spools are cheap I will try to throw one on it and see what happens, but if not I will chalk this up to why I like my more pricey not-cast reels as they have taken lots of similar spills and only came out with battle scars.
There are a few nice holes that were made nicer by the higher water and I there was lots of water to fish. In the whole where I caught my first smallmouth I also caught my first catfish on the fly.
Little did I know that I would follow up this one with a few more in this hole and a ton more on my way hiking out. The Near Nuff Crayfish I was throwing them must have been like candy. A few small largemouth and gorgeous bluegill that I really should have snapped a pic of were released as well. I went home defeated as I wanted to reacquaint with the smallmouth from last fall from the same pool as the catfish, but it was not to be.
After a nice lunch and some rest at the family get together I set in for a long hike into the southern wilderness area of the Blue. Perhaps it was the heat and higher water, but I only caught one small smallmouth and the Blue’s nasty rocks claimed several of the flies I had tied less than 24 hours before. Hopefully when the Blue is down and I hit it in the morning instead of heat of the day I will get my first Blue smallmouth. I love all this warmwater fishing and the crazy amount of miles I am covering finding good water, but I long for the cool water of a trout stream with my 4wt in hand.
June 8th, 2008 0 comments »