January Journal 2013

 

   

01 Jan 2013

It is New Year’s Day and I am wore out. Some friends of ours have a card tournament on New Year’s Eve and we have attended for two years now. It is a family environment, watching football, eating, and playing cards. The tournament is double elimination and somehow my wife and I are playing in the championship. We get drilled quickly and arrive back home at around 4:30 am, I wake-up on New Year’s Day at 8:30 am, again I am wore out.

 The weather was a little cold and rainy, perfect day for fly fishing. I get ready, tying on my flies prior to leaving and head to the river. I learned a lesson fairly quickly on the first day of 2013; when you are preparing to fish, be certain to take the time to make certain your fly is tied properly. It is not long that I get a nice hit and as quickly as I set the hook, the trailer is off. I thought wow, broke my line, that is until I noticed that the knot simply came loose, lessen learned.

 This day was filled with suprises, I am using a stripper midge as a trailer, get a big hit, this is a nice trout, then it is off. This time the line had broke and fortunately I did not have anymore of these midges. Also during this time I had a flashback #20 trailing, this one also get a big hit, nice trout, line breaks. I am beginning to get curious, I have used these previously and never had any incident. They were big trout but shocked at the line snapping.

 I was struggling with getting a bit early on in the fishing. I had seen some nice trout that were hitting nothing, thinking this is why they are good size, so I thought to myself, let’s go back to the green weenie. This is the first fish I actually caught, pretty good little fish. Make a few more green weenie cast and catch another, these are the two that are in the grass above. A few more cast, then another, this one however was camera shy and got off close enough to me for me to count. I consider fishing like bull riding, 8 seconds on the line and it is a catch. I am not sure if they went back telling the others to ignore the green weenie, but I did not get another hit on it.

 I move around, experiment a little, trying a San Juan Worm, and I get a big hit. But in typical San Juan Worm fashion, I get one chance to catch a fish and that is all, no more hits. I try eggs and a variety of other flies getting a hit or two and nothing. So I go to a yellow egg and a peach egg, thinking I have never caught one on a peach, wasting my time.

 Going to this pattern was genious I would like to say, great plan, shortly after beginning to fish this, I get bit. The fish in the net above is the one that was slain, I didn’t have any grass to put it on so sorry for poor photography, but wanted to get him back in the water quickly. I make a few more cast and big trout hits, it jumps and released. This may have been my largest one of my short fishing career, even the feller down stream said that was a big one. I fish a bit more and catch another, no pic you say, well again we shall go back to the bull riding rule that I use.

This day was filled with experiences, check line for weakness, check that knot is secure, and bring at least duplicate flies just in case. The two most popular patterns for me this day were the green weenie and the peach egg pattern, it was different two days before. This new year has started off well, catching 5, getting pics of two, and enjoying time on the water. God bless and if you have fish pics send them to us, we will post them under whatever body of water you fish: tfr@tnfishingreport.com