Priming the Kettle

Priming the Kettle

5/30/14

  Arriving around 5:00 pm Friday there were two vehicles parked where I wanted to park along the stretch of Kettle Creek in which I wanted to fish. I pulled the van in leaving room for the two Ohio vehicles. Standing on the sloped bank I found the Kettle flowing peaceably. The sun rays glistened off the wavy surface water and exposed the creek bed of rocks and stones. Birds flew across the creek and chirped to each other in their pleasant way. The only fellows I seen were pretty far up creek and well away from the area I wanted to fish for the few hours before dark.
  I hurriedly changed into my fishing wear of chest waders and new wading boots. I exchanged some dry fly boxes for more appropriate flies for Kettle Creek. There was only a slight breeze so I uncased the Scott G2 rod and fitted it with my Allen large arbor reel with new WF5F Dyna tip line.

After stepping off the bank, into the creek, I waded down creek and towards mid stream. My hearing became acclimatized with the sounds of my surroundings. Besides the birds I subconsciously listened to the sound of the flowing water. I listened for any suspicious noises like a sudden splash. My eyes became accustomed to the flowing waves of the surface water. I kept watch for any disturbance or any swirls in the calmer water along the bank. Not wanting to disturb the quiet setting with a splashing weighted streamer I elected to nymph fish until I seen a rise. I knotted on a Sulphur nymph below a Dark Hares Ear. It didn’t take long for my first strike and real frisky fighting rainbow. He tugged and pulled at the medium action 9’ rod as the shaft flexed with each tug and pull.

 

 It wasn’t much time had passed before I was tussling with a brown trout that stayed well below the surface. He scurried away from the net a couple of times before I was able to get him netted.

 

 I kept to nymph fishing casting about towards the bank and under a tall shade tree. I seen a swirl just out from the shadow of the tree and let my offerings drift through. The take was quick as was my hook set. This trout darted in quick turns and scurried about until I got it tired enough to get him close enough. I was surprised to see this trout was a brook trout.

  I was beginning to think this was a good omen for what I had coming this weekend with my first three trout were three different types.

  As the sun lazily dropped behind the trees upon the mountain top, it cast a long shadow across the bank and outward toward mid creek. I noticed a few big May flies about it the air. I also noticed a few trout feeding occasionally near the bank.

  I couldn’t resist and tied on a March Brown. While I was casting this out the wind began to pick up. I wasn’t impressed with the new weight forward line casting from my medium action rod. I just couldn’t get the distance and accuracy I wanted with the cross breeze. I moved around a bit until I got in a position I had more control. As the sun lowered more fish started to sip or splash the surface. Dark caddis was starting a hatch but I knew it would be too hard to see should I have decided to try an imitation. With the breeze and inconsistency of my casts, I wouldn’t even been able to estimate very well where my dark caddis would of fell. I stuck with a Para-March Brown.

 My cast was near the bank and the dry fly and line drifted as one without much drag on the fly that I was able to tell. A fish rose, as if turning on the dry, and took it with a swirling splash. I pulled the rod back and felt the resistance. We had a good battle going on as the trout stayed low and swam with strong pulls keeping his distance from the net. I finally got him settled down a bit and got him within distance to be netted. My first dry fly catch of the weekend was a fine looking brown trout. 

 



  As darkness started to close in I tried a couple different Coffin Fly Dries to match the ones about but the trout didn’t want anything to do with them. I even got to see a nearby trout turn away from my imitation after carefully inspecting it as it slowly drifted along the surface. Soon it was too dark to see anything on the surface at any distance so I waded out and made my way up to the van.

 This was just a primer of what to expect to come Saturday and Sunday on Kettle Creek.

  ~doubletaper