Rainy day mountain trout

jifigz

jifigz

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
4,206
Location
Miff-Co, PA
It's been a while since I've shown you all average sized trout and mediocre stream photos, so I hope you're ready. I've been mostly bass fishing lately but wanted some trout, so I went where I know the water is cold and there are lots of fish.

I fished a pink San Juan and it caught all of my fish. I landed mostly browns, but a few brookies as well, but fish were easily duped and I brought lots to hand. The stream conditions were PERFECT. Slightly stained, good flows, cloudy and rainy and thunder but I just kept fishing up through, getting soaked, and landing fish. It feels good to get in the wilderness and not always have jet boats ripping past you like on some bigger waters. I was hoping for a decent fish, but all the browns were pretty much cookie cutter with like 10" being the best fish.
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Nice fish. It's always nice to fish in a drizzle. My buddy and I float the Juniata for smallmouths in your area. I live in Cambria County.
 
Would a "What are you catching today?" thread be too unclassy?

I enjoy when we do "fish of the year" threads in December, but maybe running all year too many fish pics would get boring or encourage boorish behavior. I kinda like the idea in theory.
 
nice! WTG for fishing in those conditions. thanks for sharing with us
 
Even I would catch one out of the tree undercut in the first picture. I have never caught a fish in the case of the last photo. Did you catch any there? See any?
 
I'll take catching fish like the ones in your OP all day long.

I always found it funny how much rain makes me a better fisherman. It hides soooo many of my mistakes. :)
 
I was just catching some
riverwhy said:
Even I would catch one out of the tree undercut in the first picture. I have never caught a fish in the case of the last photo. Did you catch any there? See any?
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No, I caught no trout from the large logjams. There were a bunch of them right in a row and then, thankfully, hardly any. I hate fishing those things and I hate navigating over or around them.
 
jifigz said:
I was just catching some

No, I caught no trout from the large logjams. There were a bunch of them right in a row and then, thankfully, hardly any. I hate fishing those things and I hate navigating over or around them.
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When no fish shows itself in that great cover, I change to the biggest fly I have (usually a #4 woolly bugger). If I haven’t already spooked the owner of that hole, he usually can’t resist the T-Bone Steak. Of course I promptly miss the hookset on 70% of the takers. But at least I know how big he is (+ a couple extra inches).
 
Prospector said:
When no fish shows itself in that great cover, I change to the biggest fly I have (usually a #4 woolly bugger). If I haven’t already spooked the owner of that hole, he usually can’t resist the T-Bone Steak. Of course I promptly miss the hookset on 70% of the takers. But at least I know how big he is (+ a couple extra inches).
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That's a good strategy. I'm sometimes too lazy to change flies for one spot. I actually had a streamer on to start and was fishing the logjams with it. After I was past there I moved to nymphs
 
Nice creek and fish. I wish there were more like that here in Lehigh County. I was out yesterday afternoon, waited for the rain to start. Creek was low and clear and within 45 min. it turned to chocolate milk.
 
jifigz said:
I hate fishing those things and I hate navigating over or around them.
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Same. I find those logs to be more of a fly catching hazard than anything. They're also hard to fish and you'd have to toss a small streamer in there to fish them effectively. Like you I wouldn't change out my flies just to fish a single area. I think we have a similar mentality in that regard. Nymph rigs are too complicated to take off to add a streamer and then proceed to go right back to nymphing after.

As always, this was a good post with beautiful fish and an excellent creek at a prime time to fish. I envy your geographic location good sir! The creeks around me are in flood status as of now. We finally got our rain. I think this is going to be a rainy summer.
 
Silent Ocelot said:
Same. I find those logs to be more of a fly catching hazard than anything. They're also hard to fish and you'd have to toss a small streamer in there to fish them effectively. Like you I wouldn't change out my flies just to fish a single area. I think we have a similar mentality in that regard. Nymph rigs are too complicated to take off to add a streamer and then proceed to go right back to nymphing after.
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I think a lot of us share the same thought process with that deadfall. It's fun to dream about, but effectively fishing it is just a real challenge. Getting a good presentation is one thing - hooking and landing a fish is another. I often write them off as a +1 for the trout in the sense it's a relatively safe home for them.
 
wgmiller said:
I think a lot of us share the same thought process with that deadfall. It's fun to dream about, but effectively fishing it is just a real challenge. Getting a good presentation is one thing - hooking and landing a fish is another. I often write them off as a +1 for the trout in the sense it's a relatively safe home for them.
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That's what often makes woody debris great holding locations. For the trout, not the fisherman.
 
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