Dry Flies Thursday

 

Dry Flies Thursday

5/19/22

 

  I was tired of nymph fishing and streamer fishing most of the days so far. I threw out dry flies occasionally but it felt like practice as there were very few risers to cast to. I had a short run of casting to risers Wednesday but as the rain fell and the wind picked up it wasn’t reasonable to cast to nothing. It would be like throwing a baseball to a pitchback. You’re not really accomplishing much. It’s not like you’re fooling a batter or really know if you’re in someones rightful strike zone. All it would be is practice and how much can you really do that before you get bored and quit? Thursday I woke up and decided to dry fly fish the same section.

  It was sprinkling rain Thursday morning so I decided to tie some flies. I invited the guy camping next door over to see if he was interested in learning since he told me he was beginning to start tying his own flies being retired. He came over and watched, learned and thanked me for the fly tying tutorial. Around 9:30 he left and I got ready to go fishing. It was still overcast with sprinkles as if the wind was blowing water droplets off wet leaves.

  There were no cars parked where I wanted to fish along Kettle Creek so I parked, put on my gear and set up my 9’ 4 weight custom fly rod. I walked down to the creek and up to the riffles. The day before most of the trout were hugging the far bank under the tree limbs and shade picking off whatever drifted down to them. I knotted on a caddis and figured I would fish as I waded downstream casting towards the far bank. After I’d get so far down creek I’d walk upstream and repeat. I lit a stogie and started my adventure.

  

 When I started there wasn’t a trout rising anywhere I looked. They rose the day before so they had to be still there. Well, it didn’t take long at all for the first one to rise to my caddis. He slapped at my caddis drifting on the surface like the splash of Tabasco in a Bloody Mary. I reared back the length of line, the line tightened and I had my first trout of the morning fighting against his will towards me.

 

  I took my time slowly wading down creek and concentrating towards the far bank. Throughout the 20 yard stretch I hooked and made quite a few trout rise to my caddis. 

 

 Most sipped in my dry imitation in the slower current as easy as licking sprinkles off ice cream. In the little faster current the trout would slap at my caddis and in a snap of a candy bar I had them tight lined carrying on, scurrying about like a scared bird you try getting out of the bird cage. Once hooked they tried to spit it out like old stored honey that lost its flavor.

 

  When I got down stream so far I waded out and back up to the riffles and started all over again. None of the trout were huge but the 9” to 12” brown and rainbows gave me a satisfying struggle to the net.

 

  After fishing the 20 yard stretch twice through I called it quits and headed to my truck.

  It was enjoyable finally catching trout only on the dry fly. 

 

~doubletaper