Unfinished Business

After fishing a short time the other weekend at the local delayed harvest stream, and catching a few trout, I decided this past Saturday that one more trip up to the mountain was in order. Only having an hour or so last time to fish, I felt like I had some unfinished business with these trout. I also felt like I had more fishing to get out of my system before putting away the rods for a while to focus on deer hunting. I got a fairly early start, and arrived at the state park about 8:30 am. Since they don't open the gates until 8:00 am, I was a little surprised to find a few people out fishing already. It turns out they had camped the night before, so they were able to get an even earlier start on their day.

There were a bunch of trout in this pool

 My usual strategy when I'm trout fishing is to cover a fair amount of water, but this time was unusual because the pool I started fishing turned out to be where I stayed. There were people fishing both above and below me, far enough away that we all had room to fish, but it did limit the amount of stream that I could cover without getting out and hiking upstream. It turned out that this wouldn't be a problem because there was a pod of a couple dozen trout right in front of me. I started out the morning fishing a hare's ear bird's nest nymph, and my first few trout came on this.

Jacob Fork Rainbow

As the morning warmed up, I noticed some cream colored midges hatching, and lo and behold, trout started rising to them! This got me excited, and I quickly cut off the nymph and got out my fly box to tie on a dry fly. Of course, all my small midge flies were used up on my last trip to the Davidson River, and since I hadn't expected or even planned to do much trout fishing this late in the season, I hadn't tied any to replace them. I thought that since these fish were recently stocked, they might be fooled by a bigger dry fly. I tried fishing a few different patterns, but without success. Evidently these fish had already figured out that if it was twice the size of what they were eating, they needed to leave it alone.

Jacob Fork Brook Trout

Finally, after digging through my fly boxes, I found a couple of size 18 blue wing olive parachutes that I had tied. Since this was the smallest dry fly I had, I decided to give it a try. It turns out that it was close enough, at least for some of the trout. I got some refusal rises, but still managed to fool several nice rainbows and brookies. The trout seemed much more bunched up this time than they did the week before. I guess the trout had time to migrate to some of the bigger pools after the stockings the other week.

Jacob Fork Rainbow

I was glad that I had a chance to go back and give the trout another try. I would still like to get farther up in the mountains and fish for some wild trout one more time this fall, but I don't know if that's going to be in the cards. Either way, I was thankful for the opportunity to get out and do a little trout fishing and enjoy the fall weather. Willing trout rising to dry flies were just icing on the cake.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Joseph

A Brief Fishing Trip

I've written before about the many choices that I face as an outdoorsman in the fall, with hunting seasons and trout fishing vying for my attention. Most of the time, deer hunting trumps trout fishing for me because of the limited time that I have to hunt. However, on Saturday I decided to take a break from deer hunting, and head up to South Mountain State Park for an hour or two to do some trout fishing.

Jacob Fork

This decision was brought about due to several factors. One of the biggest was the fact that the last time I went fishing for anything was the middle of August. Another factor was the knowledge that the delayed harvest had just been stocked, so I felt sure there would be fish in the stream. I love getting way up in the mountains and fishing for wild trout, but when I have just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon it's hard to beat a 25 minute ride and willing fish. The final thing that cemented my decision to trout fish was finding out that the soybeans were being harvested on the farm where I do most of my bow hunting. I figured with this going on I would be better off fishing. All these thoughts were running through my head as if I needed a reason to go fishing, but to tell the truth it had just been too long since I had been on a stream or seen a trout.

Hooked Up on the Jacob Fork

Saturday turned out to be a great day to go fishing, as the temperature got up close to 70 degrees and the sun was shining. I talked my wife into coming along on the trip, and it's thanks to her that there are pictures to go along with this fishing report. She doesn't fish nearly as often as I do, but occasionally she accompanies me on a fishing trip. She was fishing with a spinning rod and single hook Roostertail spinner, and I was fly fishing. She did catch a nice brook trout, but unfortunately it got off before I could get to her to make a picture. She was the main photographer on the trip, and I didn't have a camera on me. Next time, I will make sure we both have a camera.

Jacob Fork Rainbow

We only fished about an hour, but I did manage two rainbows, one on a Triple Threat streamer, and the other on a two nymph rig. Being a dry fly optimist, I did try the tried and true Thunderhead a while, but no risers today. The water looked a little low, but there was still some nice deep pools and lots of trout. Our local TU chapter, Foothills TU, has helped with the delayed harvest stockings this year at South Mountain and the fish were spread out along the entire stream, rather than years past where they would be bunched up in one or two pools near the stocking points. I think this has really helped the fishing during the Delayed Harvest season at South Mountain, because almost any pool that is deep enough will have a few trout in it, and there are more places to fish along this sometimes crowded stretch of water.

Jacob Fork

It was a nice day to be enjoying the great outdoors, and I'm glad that my wife was able to come along and share the experience. I think I need to take these "breaks" from deer hunting more often, and just get out and enjoy fall in the mountains. It is a special time of year.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Joseph