Fished under cloudy skies today for four hours this afternoon. I fished two rigs; the SMB on a short leader and a #12 Stimulator with a trailing #16 Sparkle Larva on a longer 12ft leader, the fish just nailed the Sparkle larva. I saw little to no mayfly nymphs or surface flies on the stream again today which was the main reason for tying on a Sparkle Larvae, I’m glad I did. Approximately twenty fish were taken in a short time and the count was 12-14 brown trout that were 14in or above, Excellent. All fish caught in a hundred yard stretch of flat open water that I worked up very very slowly and then got out and worked it up again. I’m working on better casts, accurate mending and deader drifts. The wild parsnip is up and in full bloom, know what it looks like and avoid if possible. Enjoy the summer now, it will be gone before we know it.

Slide Show

What a great day! I worked the first half of the day and then took the dogs out. Looking forward to wonderful weather and great company I knew I would have a good time today, oh yea, did I mention we were going trout fishing?

I met Sershen and one of my old friends Mikey Paul at noon to leave to hit Car Door Alley again. This time the plan was to chase the other feeder branch down and see what the valley and stream held. Rigged to run all three of us hit the water with lunch packed and time to kill. The plan was to fish as late as possible knowing we all had headlamps and flashlights for a potential late return. 

I fished a Pink Holo Scud I tie with a Sparkle Larva as a trailer. I love this stream because it offers so much in such a small space, you can spend hours fishing the first part of this stream if you want or you can bounce quickly from run to run, hole to hole and with a nice trail near by you can cover alot of ground quickly. I picked up a decent brown on the Sparkle Larva pattern I tie and felt vindicated knowing that my efforts to learn fly tying are paying off this season. 

We fished and hiked to the confluence that splits Car Door Alley in two, this time we chose to zig rather than zag. Sershen and I took a ph of 6.8 on each branch and water temp of ~46 and ~47. We do this for general observation sake, the main branch had a temp of 46.5 which would lead me to believe the flows are comparable between branches but I’m not an expert.

Moving forward we fished some difficult runs and holes. The flows are two low to have significant sized trout in the riffles at this point. Tree branches in front, behind, on top and in your face makes you love and rely on a good roll cast. I need to continue practicing, taking a trout here is something to smile about. 

We spied quite a few very colorful brookies in the clear water, their pink and white fins darting. I love seeing the changes in the stream as you progress towards the headwaters. We stopped to pick bugs as usual and this time my strainer (I love my strainer, Liz let me take it from the kitchen) came up with a most excellent golden stonefly. I want to read more about these things, I noticed this one was much larger but looked the same as its smaller friends. I’m curious to how long the gestation period is for this species. I found only the one large one but many smaller ones leading me to think this species takes several years to mature. 

We stopped to make lunch which when your with Sershen means some hotdogs and I dig it. He even goes so far as to pack in and out a full sized bottle of ketchup thats only 1/3 full. Making a fire without anything other than flame was slightly difficult due to the oncoming rain but that didn’t deter dinner. We cooked and it rained. After eating we decided that, although we hadn’t explored as far as we wanted, we were ready to head back. I will be returning to explore the rest another day. 

I love the hike, the decent, and the sound of the water just as much as the fish and the hunt.