Parachuting March Browns

Parachuting March Browns

5/18/2020

 It was mid morning. Another guy and I were fishing a long run in the project area of Kettle creek. Jeff had disappeared down creek. The sun would peak out from the moving cloud cover now and then making the area brighter and the water sparkle a bit more. Occasionally a trout would rise but the rise form looked more like a trout was taking emergers than surface flies. Besides that, there wasn’t anything happening on top or in the air that I could see. All of a sudden three vehicles pulled up and parked along the guardrail. About 5 young guys got out and hurried down to the creek section we were fishing like they were going to miss their free T-shirt for the first 25 attendance at a sports arena. All but one fitted in between and around us. One of the fellows slid down the bank on the road side, across from us, and started to set up his fly line. It didn’t take long for the one fellow I had been fishing with to leave. I still felt that there were trout to catch and the young guys didn’t interfere with my fishing so I stuck around. I remember one of the young fellows saying that the First Fork was blown out so that’s why they came to this section of Kettle Creek.

  So, there we were synchronized nymph fishing for trout in the morning sunlight. The fellow to my left was the only one consistently picking off a trout now and then in the faster wavy water. I would get a strike now or then but I was having a hard time keeping them attached to the hook. The guy on my immediate right was digging into his many fly boxes changing nymphs like someone picking out colored beads and making a Native bead necklace. Two others were downstream but I wasn’t paying attention to them. The guy across from us was snagging bottom often enough that he was exercising his fly rod flex on stuck rocks than actually fishing. He finally gave in and told the others he was taking off. Two other guys passed behind me and headed upstream and I guess took off with him. Three of us fished for awhile before a young teen and his father, I assumed, showed up and fished down creek from us still in the same run of water. It was nearing noon and getting on the warmer side. Still a few trout would rise but nothing to get too excited about. The guy to my left was still hooking up with trout on occasion but definitely not as often as earlier. His pal was now sitting behind him watching him nymph fish the run asking him all kinds of questions of what he was using to catch the trout like; does it have brown legs? What size are you using? Etc… Well, I finally got bored with the nymph fishing and even though nothing was rising decided to knot on a dry March Brown.

  I’ve been known to make trout rise though there might not be a single trout coming to the surface. I’ve heard the comment ‘the trout aren’t looking up”. Well I know if you walk the bank near a trout they see you and skidaddle out of the area. I also seen articles of a trout’s line of sight so I do believe that the surface water, and beyond, is always within their vision. Maybe not so much in the real deeper sections but we were fishing where the depth wasn’t too dark or too deep. The trout didn’t appear to be feeding much on the bottom at the time, at least we weren’t hooking any, so why not try to get them to rise to a dry? I mean if you were at a buffet and already looked at the food display and all of a sudden a waitress pans out a few crab legs you know you’re going to grab one before someone else!!

  I made a few dry fly casts and on my third cast I watched the March Brown float and bobbed on the surface drag free just passing me. A trout rose and took it with a gulp. I reared back on the rod, the line tightened and an audible splash broke the calm surroundings. There was no doubt that the other fishermen looked to see what the splash was as I played the trout to the net. A nice brown trout fought pretty aggressively all the way in. 

 

 I’m sure it was obvious by any observer that I was casting a dry fly. The second trout I caught, on the dry, the guy sitting down asked me if it was on a dry fly and what kind? Normally I find that fly guys don’t usually ask other guys what they are catching trout on unless they know them or at least had a few casual conversations with them or unless they are a newbie. Especially by someone sitting down watching. I said out loud a March Brown.

  The guy fishing to my left, over the faster run, walked around me and moved to my right in the slower tail out. He started to dig through a fly box and I had no doubt he was tying on a dry fly. I moved up near the faster wavy water and casted the March Brown out a few times. I didn’t like the way the Catskill dry MB was floating and it was hard to see in the faster current besides that I wasn’t getting any takers. I switched to a March Brown Parachute and things started looking up!! (Pun intended). After the third trout I caught I looked downstream and noticed the teen’s father was casting a dry fly also.

 

 Well the next hour or so I was casting dry parachute MB’s and making trout rise pretty often. It wasn’t that I was hooking them all nor netting them all but it sure beat the boredom of nymph fishing.

 

 I didn’t have to move much to put the dry fly where I wanted it. I didn’t have to see any particular trout rising to target it. A friend of mine calls it blind casting. Just throwing a dry fly out there hoping that something will take it. I figure that trout aren’t rising because there isn’t anything on the surface or anything worth the energy to rise to. Also I believe if there’s a nice size Mayfly floating on the surface it might just be a big enough meal for a trout eager enough to rise too. Just like us. We might not be hungry but if there is an apple tree in our path with big juicy looking apples..well!

 

 After a couple of hours the trout quit rising to my dries. The other two young fellows had left. I was fishing the tail out and slower section before I decided to call it quits. The father and son moved to my left just before I waded to the bank and headed up to my truck.

“Fooled them again, Jerry” I thought to myself.

 

~doubletaper