Saturday morning at 6:45 found only ONE CAR at the Y Pool parking lot. Lucky me! Fifteen minutes later I'm on the bubbler arm with only three hours to play. I've always wanted to work this experiment on this river: take one pattern, start small, catch some trout (or just hook some trout as it is on this river) and then increase the pattern size until they stop hitting.
On went a #24 hot spot. I hooked trout. Then a change to a #20 in the same pattern. More trout! Now a #18 and the trout still smacked my offering. Then a #16 hot spot. Only one fish in 45 minutes bothered the size 16!
What does this prove? Probably nothing except that those Swift bows (and one brown) like smaller flies.
This was a simple game played out on a few stolen hours on this lovely stream. It was fun!!
I take the protection of rivers like the Millers and the Swift very seriously. The fishing? It's a wonderful pastime.!!
Ken
20 comments:
Or it could be the bite slowed down as the morning progressed. They do like those little ones on the Swift though. Caught a little smallmouth on a double humpie up at the Ypool last night after dark around 8:15 or so, coulda knocked me over with a marshmallow, I've never seen a smallie up there before. Sol Rizzo
I saw a smallie at the Y Pool last Spring. They may have come from over the spillway.
Fished the Y Pool last night until 7:30. landed one and broke off two on tiny hot spots!
Ken
Are you seeing any hatches of note on the Swift right now?
Brendan
Brendan,
2 words, midge pupae.
-BT
Brendan,
Browntrout is right! Midge pupae at least at dusk at the Y Pool Wednesday night. I will see cream cahills (as Thomas Ames describes the fly) around the PIPE in the late afternoon from May through early October. Ants, beetles and hoopers work too.
Ken
Spent good portion of the day on the Millers yesterday with 6 decent browns to show for my efforts (I hike a lot, not what one would call a social fisherman).
The best catch was a 16 incher with 1/2 as many spots and much darker colored than the others. Reminded me of the natives that would show up occasionaly in the unstocked brooks I fished as a kid. It was my first sojurn to the lower river. Wonderful way to spend a day poring through my copy of Ken's guidebook and seeing them firsthand.
Scott
P.S. I caught EVERY single creek chub in the river as well !
Went to the Swift for a few hours on Sat evening. Hooked up 4 bigger sized fish and lost 2 tippets in the bubbler arm. Only fished large hoppers. Lots of looks.
I am pretty sure I met you Ken, especially now that I see your hat on the website. :) I only put it together after we talked. Were you guiding on Sat? Didn't want to go back and bother you, but I was the guy in the yellow shirt near the y pool at nightfall. Cheers!
Falsecast,
So that was you!!! Your hopper comments seemed very familiar. It was a pleasure meeting you!! You're right about the hat. It's a give-a-way!!
Ken
Yep it's hopper time. Sometimes the bigger and uglier the better. I love to a big bow fall back and inspect what's overhead. Or come out of nowhere and suck it down. Enjoy, we've got about a month to go. Tight lines guys.
Bob O
I should have guessed it was you as one doesn't see much guiding on the river.
Yes, I sing the Hopper fishing praises for the same reasons Bob O pointed out. It's part of my "Protest the Pupa" campaign on that river. :-) In a month or so I'll be back to the 24 black midge.
Great to put a face to the Blog. I'll keep my eyes out in the future.
Anybody ever see an otter on the Swift, thought I saw one sat night just above rt 9 bridge.
Maybe an Otter, could be a Mink (smaller) or maybe a Weasel. Plenty of those on the Swift. Sol Rizzo
Thanks Sol, I think it was an otter, it was kind of sitting up in the water and snorted at me when we saw each other, I'm not sure who was startled more but I know I almost needed to change what was under my waders! I know the fish were spooked too!
I've seen plenty of beavers on the swift, too. Sure it wasn't one of those?
Brendan
There was an otter at the Y Pool a few winters ago. Lots of otter food up there!!
Ken
In late August 2009 I was fishing the tree pool below the Pipe. Suddenly I was distracted by cries that sounded like a puppy in pain. The yelps and crying seemed very close by. Looking across the water I could make out a large dark shape moving above the pool about halfway up the steep hillside. And at the water’s edge were two smaller forms, one complaining to the other about the fish it wouldn’t share.
The otters were oblivious to my presence. I was able to watch them for some time as one twin barked and the other flapping fish in mouth evaded its lunges darted away, sometimes on the bank and sometimes in the water.
By then I saw the larger one (mom?) also carried a rainbow in its jaws. It moved back down the bank nearer the whiners and then, seemly wanting to distance herself from the kids and eat in peace, it submerged. I watched the dark silhouette silently head out across the current directly toward me.
That got me wondering…these things are flesh eaters…what next? I must have been standing in a spot familiar to it (maybe it lived in the undercut?), and in my green hooded rain jacket and waders I guess I blended right in with the rainy streamside scene.
That otter came right across to me. It swam through the current’s deep cut up into the shallow and ended up about between me and the shore. It must have been surprised when it finally raised its fish-filled mouth and head above water and got sight of me - about four feet away. I could have reached down and touched it. For what seemed like a couple of minutes we were frozen in time. I watched the water drip off his eyes and whiskers. The 12+ inch rainbow in his mouth was still alive and flapping. That otter was big – maybe 40 or 50 lbs? – husky and long.
I thought - I wonder if I can get a photo of this. (My camera was in my pocket.) All it took was my slow hand movement toward my shirt pocket and the spell was broken. He realized I wasn’t a tree at all, and in panic, with fish still in mouth, shot into the water and rocketed back from where he’d come. I was amazed how fast that beast could swim. I bet he made it across, against the current, in seven seconds or less.
It wasn’t long after that that the heron came back and took residence on the blank snag in the center of the pool. The otters seemed unfazed. The family moved just a little upstream and settled onto a log strainer to enjoy their meals. After a few more minutes I left them and moved out through the rain and approaching darkness.
I wonder how long it takes for a family of otters to clear a pool of fish?
Bob O
Tonight I and a friend that I guided saw TWO otters by the Y Pool. I thought that they would put an end to the surface activity but they ended up working the overflow arm of the pool. They didn't disturb the Y Pool at all. I blue heron did. It took a trout and carried it up to the "lawn" to finally shallow it. The trout kept rising.
Ken
i was there monday too. 3 otters. sol
Wouldn't be surprised if they are part of the family I saw a couple of years ago. They'll get fat in the Y pool.
Decided to give the Millers a go Sunday evening just after 5. Headed to Wendell Depot and found 1 car in the parking lot.
Made the trek to the Kempfield section and saw a couple of actively feeding fish. Eventually landed a beautiful brown on a stonefly nymph. This fish went all of 18 inches and fought and stripped line until I finally got him to the net. It took a short time to fully revive him, but he swam away strong.
Hoping for a little rain to bring the flows up. Looking forward to some fall fishing on the Millers.
Tom from Orange
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