Sunday, February 27, 2011

Dry Fly Action in February

Haven't had a single day to get to the mountains in February till today, the last Sunday of the month.  It was a gorgeous day with the temp getting close to 70 and a partly cloudy sky, so after church I headed up to the Jefferson National Forest to hit a stream for an hour.  I also got a new 6'6'' custom 3/4 weight fly rod last week and was due for trying it out!  Now my goal this year is to catch at least one fish (Preferably a trout) every single month this year, and with zero trips fishing in February, I needed to catch a fish on this trip today.  It rained pretty good on Friday so the creeks here are back to it's normal levels after this abnormally dry month.  Started out fishing a Beadhead nymph, after about 4 cast into this nice pool I noticed a couple fish rising, but could not figure out what they were rising at.   A couple cast later I noticed a whitish/gray hatch start fluttering on the water and then get slammed by a brookie.  I quickly matched it with a White adams and made a cast I got the fish to rise but it was a miss.  Moved on to the next pool and slowly drifted the dry by a rock and a brookie quickly jumped at it.  It felt good to put a little bend in my new fly rod and nothing like a wild brookie as the first fish on a new rod that is inscripted "Brookie Slayer." 

I had a lot of action with the dry but only two other hook ups, but both came off quickly.  The hatch stopped after about another 45 minutes and the trout were shutting down so decided to head back after an hour of fishing and call it a day.  One fish is what I wanted in February, and one fish is what I got.  Can't beat dry fly fishing in February!