Current River 3/7/10

This past Sunday was a perfect day for fishing.  It was a beautiful day, the water conditions were excellent for dries and droppers, and I had good company to fish with - Mr. Joe Scott.  Check out this tight loop:

Being that it was the first weekend of trout season, Joe and I decided we'd float to get away from the crowds.  It was the right call.  We did not see a single fisherman the entire day.  I really couldn't believe it.  It was also nice fishing out of the boat because we were able to haul our cooler, lunch, lots of tackle, and about 6 fly rods.  I love not having to re-rig every time you want to change techniques.  We fished with dries, nymphs, streamers - we even through some sinking lines. 

The morning started out pretty slow.  We caught fish on varrious patterns but couldn't seem to find the magic bug.  The caddis were coming off pretty good and I managed to stick one small wild rainbow on a dry, but the fish did not seem to be into the caddis, or at least not the adult caddis.  We tried caddis worms, soft hackles, pupa, emergers, dries - nothing was consistent. 

I spent a significant amount of time checking to see what was going on under water.  Turning over various rocks revealed caddis worms, several different colors and sizes of mayfly nymphs, stone fly nymphs, sculpin, scuds, etc.  I love the fact that Current is such a clean, healthy stream.  I also saw a lot of crawdads.  This guy was right next to the boat so I decided to snap some underwater shots:

The coolest bug I found, and this is only the second time I've seen one of these on the Current, was an acquatic worm (i.e. the San Juan Worm).  Check this sucker out:

I don't know why, but I've always felt like I'm cheating when I'm fishing San Juans.  Something about throwing a fluorescent worm just screams trout park.  Now I won't feel as bad when I tie one of these on.  If this is actually part of the fish's diet, and not just some powerbait-esque attractor, I'll be down to fish it more often.  I wonder if I could throw it as a dropper.  That would be cool.

Anyway, the further down river we floated, the better the fishing got.  Perhaps it was just a time of day thing beause I know the holes in the upper section can fish well, but the fish started nailing caddis and steamers down river.  I couldn't believe they were hitting streamers on a bright sunny day with clear water!  I was not complaining.  

We stopped and spent the majority of the aftenroon in what I think is my new favorite stretch of river.  No chance I'm sharing the location.  We ended up netting probably 25-30 fish in the afternoon.  Mostly browns but, unfortunately, none were real big.  Our largest was probably around 14 or 15. 

It was a really cool afternoon because it was pretty much all sight casting with dries and droppers.  The fish were going ape-shit over the fly too.  It would hit the water and they would almost fight each other over who got to eat it.  They were very active.  I was really digging it. 

Great day on the water.  It was my first time back to the Current in quite a while.  I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.