Fall is Approaching

Finally, after a very long hot summer, it appears that fall is on the way. We've been having some cooler daytime temps, chilly nights, and its gettin dark alot earlier than it was just a few weeks ago. A few trees have started to turn and bird season opens in two days! The fishing, however, is still tough and in somewhat of a transition mode. Usually by this time of year there are enough spawning kings in the rivers to target browns with eggs but with the late run thats still a week or so away. Cool temps at night mean the mousing game is slowing down and the gin clear water makes the streamer fish very tough. I've continued to get my fix at the vice however, and have been playing around with some intruder style flies for this fall.

I look forward to swinging these guys starting the end of October!
Even with tough conditions I have still been getting out to fish a fair amount and although we haven't killed them we've still managed at least a fish or two each time. Jake and I went out on what was probably the last mousing trip of the year a week or so back. We started off with a bang as I hit a 13 inch bow 5 casts into the night. Not long later Jake got a fish, a 16 inch bow, but unfortunately those were our only two hookups of the night.

Despite fishing alot of prime water and throwing several different patterns the action seemed to totally shutoff the longer the night wore on. Here is one of my fies getting ready to go in the drink....

Finally after about 4 hrs we called it quits and headed home, it was obviously not going to work out the way we had hoped it would.
The local river I've been fishing this summer has continued to be steadily decent. Nothing mind blowing, but I also haven't gotten skunked yet this year. The water temps have cooled but it still remains low and clear. Small nymphs and soft hackles are hooking fish and where there is one there is usually multiple stacked up. Jeff found this nice rainbow at the head of a fast run.

As it got dark I decided to put on a meaty stonefly hoping a bigger brown would want some dinner. I hooked a nice fish and thought my plan had worked....only to find that the big brown was actually a fat smallmouth! Smallmouth are present in pretty good numbers in the lower portion of this river, but this was way higher up than I've ever seen or caught them before.

Not a bad way to wrap up a night!
Things will change pretty quickly in the next few weeks. The fishing should get quite a bit better and grouse and woodcock will start getting their fair share of my attention as well. Hoping next report will have some fat browns and dead birds!