Beauty And Surprise In Skinny Water

Fly Execution:  Nymphing
Date:  02/24/23
Time:  12:30pm
Air:  34°
Wind Chill:  20°
Water:  42°
Water pH:  7.47
Elevation:  320’

My favorite fly fishing author, Dave Hughes, writes, "...we fish for beauty and surprise." Big Indian Creek, p. 33. I agree. I’m fond of the less obvious streams and the less obvious areas of streams. The surprises are all the more exhilarating and rewarding. It is nice to know that healthy life exists in such areas. These areas become all the more beautiful with such surprises. 

On a recent outing, I hiked a substantial distance through a forest. The windchill on this particular day was significant, and I was chilled to the bone. It is interesting how days that are not overly cold can feel so much colder with wind. I passed several streams in this forest and came upon my targeted water, which was new to me. This stream was narrow and the water was skinny. My expectations dwindled. Below is the stream I fished. It became utterly impassable at one point. While an unassuming stream, it had the sort of thick bushy cover that serves as a protection from predators. 

I stumbled upon a run with some degree of depth. Depth is relative, and good depth on this stream was about 1.5’. I knew that if a fish was holding in such skinny water, I had to be as tactical as possible. I decided to fish this run with an aquatic worm - no bead, just a bunch of underlying turns of wire (0.025 lead-free to be exact) to allow it to sink and drift along at a moderate rate. The white arrows show the current direction and the white X is the approximate location where I surmised a trout could be holding.

I was rewarded. These photos are of the same brook trout. I thought of Dave Hughes. I was surprised and the stream became all the more beautiful because of the surprise.

And the release…