Golden Stonefly

If any of you have been on the river lately you may have noticed the small golden stoneflies are out. It seems early to me but we have been having unusually warm weather. Here is an imitation of the dry golden stonefly I created. I don't have a fancy name for it yet maybe I'll call it the Yellow Johnny.

Before the Gulf oil leak

This is a picture of my brother Tom with a couple of fish just days before the the Gulf Coast oil disaster he heard about the leak on his drive back up north. Notice the name of the boat.

Fish On

Well, I haven't written in the past couple of weeks; I will try to keep up with the blog now that trout season is in full force. I have had a few thirty-fish days, mostly on either caddis bead heads or prince nymphs, since I last wrote. I have been fishing the Saranac and the West branch of the Ausable. On my last trip to the Saranac I was so badly bitten by black flies that I felt like I had been punched in the face, but the fishing was great. I caught my first big fish of the season on Thursday; it was an awesome brown trout. Of course, I have no picture (I dropped my camera into the river last year), so I am not even going to tell you all how big it was. Let's just say I have caught my share of 24 inch browns on the river and this fish was bigger and she was heavy. It was the biggest fish I have caught on the Ausable. I had no one to witness the fish, except my puppy, Gus; he wasn't even mildly impressed. He is new to fishing and probably thinks all trout are that big. My last dog, Charlie, who passed away last July, would have been really exited. Today the water temp was 54 degrees. I fished one of my favorite stretches of pocket water and in one hole I caught a beautiful Brookie, a Rainbow, and an 18 inch Brown. I usually don't see many fishermen on this stretch of water, but today I ran into two separate groups using spinning gear. I stopped to talk to a gentleman from one group who said he had caught a few small brook trout. The river was busy with fishermen; I will probably be looking for less crowded water on the weekends from now on. Luckily, there are still plenty of spots where I can avoid the crowds.

Haystack

I was on the West Branch on Friday and the water temp was 44 degrees in the catch and release area. The fishing was slow. Yesterday afternoon I took a trip over to the Saranac river with my brother; let's just say we went to a very popular spot for both fly fishermen and worm guys. The water's temp was 50 degrees and there were a ton of caddis on the water. I nymphed for awhile, until I noticed a lone trout rising to caddis on the far bank. I didn't want to miss my opportunity to catch my first fish of the season on a dry fly, so I waded the chest-deep water to the far side of the river. I first tried a caddis emerger. The trout refused the fly, so I switched to a size 14 rusty (orange) haystack. The trout nailed it, but I jumped the gun, setting the hook too fast and sending my fly into the tree branches about 20 feet above my head. Taking a deep breath, I broke my fly off along with most of my tippet and proceeded to tie new tippet and another size 14 haystack to my line. I waited a couple of minutes until the trout started to rise again. I made a decent roll cast, placing my fly about 20 feet upriver from the feeding trout. The fly floated downstream; it was a perfect dead drift. Sure enough, the trout took the fly. I waited a split second and gently set the hook. I had the fish on; it fought slowly. It wasn't a monster fish, but it was a real beauty: a 16 inch brown. Not a bad fish for my first of the season on a dry fly.