June 30, 2022. After the previous outing in which trout were feasting on a Sulphur hatch just before dark (and I couldn't catch ANY of them) I decided to make a first attempt at designing my own fly just for this type of hatch because I didn't have anything in my box that looked like what they were snarfing down.
I made a pair of size 18 flies, using mallard feathers for the wings, white thread and white hackle feathers. Time to go back to the Farmington for redemption.
I arrived around 6:30 PM to find 8 other fishermen in the spot where only a 2-3 others have constituted a crowd on prior visits. They were yucking it up and even had a yellow lab swimming around having the time of his life. Looked like fun but "a Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind."
I chose a spot further downstream where the water was a bit faster and several splashy rises had occurred regularly. As the evening wore on and dusk settled, the feeding frenzy kicked in and there were very splashy rises everywhere. These fish weren't just eating, they were pigging out! Up close, my new flies looked every bit of a first attempt but from a distance, on the water, they looked fairly convincing. Turns out, I was the only one so convinced; the trout ignored them completely. I also tried hopper-dropper with a couple of different nymphs, size 20 Sulphur spinner, size 18 blue winged olive spinner, even good old elk hair caddis. Nuttin, not even one strike.
You'd think with all that gorging they'd get a little sloppy and hit on one my flies. No sir.
Holy dry spell Batman. That's 0 for the last 3 outings. I slunk back to the truck, my tail between my legs.
Prayer???
ReplyDelete