The front that moved through Saturday brought gusty winds, rain, hail, sunshine, no wind, rainbows, bright sun and then clouds. Challenging conditions for fishing the ever fickle West Branch. We saw decent tan caddis and a limited hendrickson hatch (2:30 pm) w/ spinner fall (5-7 pm). Between the shifting winds, we managed to locate a number of rising fish. Attached are a few photos. I don’t know of any other East Coast fishery where you can consistently land a 20″ or greater, wild brown trout on a dry fly. Long leaders, drag free presentations, specialized flies and spooky fish are the rule, but they sure are gorgeous if you can fool them.
Well the first week of May is here and I finally slipped out of the house last night to get some fishing in before dark. I went down to Irondequoit Creek just in time for the evening hatch. There were midges, mays, and dark caddis coming off. I almost never see the fish on Irondequoit creek feed on the surface but tonight they were. I put on a size 16 elks hair caddis and a beadhead pheasant tail dropper. My nymph got caught up on the bottom right away so I switched to the just the caddis. Although my caddis fly was much lighter than what was hatching the fish started striking it right away. I ended up catching this small but feisty brown and had a couple more on. One was a 15″ brown that I played four about a minute until he got off. I think I will go back this week and see if I can pull him out of his hole. Stay tuned…
