Awesome Day, What did I do?

[Joerugs]

I had a perfect weekend of learning and fishing. Started at the fly shop in Volant. They helped set me up to fish the current grannom hatch going on. Hooked up four times, landed one on the Neshannock. Drove on to my camp after a great conversation with a couple of very nice fisherman. Fished the fly zone near my camp the next morning. Obviously, the grannoms weren't hatching. I didn't expect them to be. After all, I'm an hour further east then the previous evening. So after seining the water and flipping rocks, I tied on a mayfly nymph from LivelyLegz, followed by a caddis pupa. Nothing for 40 mins. So I switched to sucker spawn, followed by a self tied olive wooly, followed by a san jaun worm. 20 more mins, nothing. Remembering the conversation from the previous evening at the truck with the two fisherman, I put on a bubble indicator for the first time ever. Well, over the next four hours, I must have hooked into 25 trout, landing 11, loosing the rest either at the net, in the air or after a great fight on the new 10' 3wt. What surprised me was, I caught fish on all three hooks throughout the day. Now, my question is this, did I just guess right and catch hungry stocked trout, or did I dial into the finicky fish's menu? The previous week at the same stream, I only caught one on a Y2K after fishing hard all day.

I just had to share my story with someone. It was the best day on the stream since the Kinzua Fly Fishing School had me on the Kinzua Creek a few years ago.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

First of all, congrats on a great day! Hard to say for sure from what you shared, but typically if you are not catching fish, especially stocked trout, you are not getting to the zone in the water column where they are feeding. Not having enough weight on and just zipping over their heads is common. The bobber may have slowed down your presentation and let those bugs get in front of the fish.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

I'd say: The fish remembered your presentation which left a bad taste in their mouth.

It could be something simple like you not blending into your background.
Some other thoughts to consider:
Barometric pressure/temperature change.
Water levels, Sun position and clouds (lack of).

It's really tough to say, one day you catch plenty and the next their mouths are tied shut.

 

[Joerugs]

What I like about this sport is learning something each time I fish, research, tie and talk about it. Makes sense. I do believe the indicator also showed me how many hits I could've been missing due to slack line and not being able to see the color section of my leader very well. This experience taught me to stick to tight line the ripples and rougher water, and add the indicator while fishing slower deeper runs.

 

[Jake41]

I agree with the previous replies. Presentation plays a very big role in success. Better to catch bottom a few times even if it means losing flies than having your flies go over the trouts head. Glad you had a great day. Joerugs is right about learning something each time we fish. There is no substitute for time in the stream, even if you don't catch any fish, it should be a learning experience. Tight lines!

 

[PennKev]

The bad news is that with stocked trout it can be as simple as happening to stumble onto an area packed with dumb, hungry fish.

In order to know what you "did right" you need to build up a body of work so to speak and notice correlations between how you are fishing, where you are fishing, when you are fishing, and the conditions. Even then, things don't always play out the way you expect and some days that you think should be awesome are duds, and days that you think will be poor turn out pretty well.

I don't think you are going to get a definite answer about a specific day's fishing success on a fishing forum without anyone here having actually been with you at the time. I don't think anyone can arm chair quarterback your day's fishing without having been there.

 

[dryflyguy]

Most important thing IMO - you got out!

After 40 years of FF, I like to think that I know when, and where to go.
But I'm still often surprised by what happens out there.
Days when I expect things to be great, and it doesn't happen. And vice versa

One thing I do know - the more you get out, the more likely you are to hit things just right...

 

[gulfgreyhound]

The stars aligned and you had one memorable day for sure. Congrats. GG