Tuesday, October 15, 2013

But autumn's here!

Date: 10/12
Conditions: partly cloudy to sunny, 70-75F
Time: 8:00-11:30

Autumn means tributary fishing in our little corner of the world, but I'm dismayed to say that I hadn't tried it out....until today!  

It's been a few months in the making, but I finally got all my gear together to tackle some autumn tributary fishing.  Being somewhat skittish of tackling a larger river like the Genny for my first time out, I decided on a small creek to the west of the city.  It was Columbus Day weekend which made it out to be a bit more populated than normal I guess.  No matter, just a little stroll downstream a bit got me to a small pool I could have to myself.  Now I hadn't seen a fully grown salmon in real life before (I mean alive, yes, salmon fillets are large) so I hadn't really prepared myself to see a 3+ foot monster swim past me on the way down!  If I didn't catch a fish, this was definitely going to be an experience!

Conditions seemed to be less than optimal after talking to a few other fisherman.  We haven't had our typical fall weather lately and it's showing in the water level and and air temperatures.  I had tied up a few bunny leeches in white, purple, and chart with hourglass eyes in sizes 2 and 6 for the occasion and chucked them out there.  With the water so low and only tying weighted streamers, I didn't have much choice except to swim them past and keep them out of the weeds.

By the end of my time there I had seen about 10 salmon truck past me, but hadn't hooked into one.  It seemed they were somewhat skittish of the swung fly and may have responded better to a dead drifted presentation.

Next time, I'll tie a few lightly dressed flies to deal with the low water.  I also learned something new yesterday in researching more flies to tie for trib fishing.  Salmon actually eat eggs!  I was under the impression that they don't eat at all while migrating/spawning.  Whoduhthunk?! So I'll tie up some egg sucking leeches and other egg pattern flies for the next time out.

Till next time!

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