After yesterday’s experience of watching Don catching fish by midging, I headed out to the same spot today at 2:00. There was no visible hatch occurring, and no signs that fish were in the spot. I had a blast for two hours.
I missed the first three fish as I was too slow to set up on the strike. However, I got the hang of it and had a fantastic session. Most of the afternoon I had a strike within 3 minutes. I was using the same set up that Don used yesterday: Rainbow Warrior top fly (tied last night) and a size 16 PT nymph at the bottom, 8 feet below my indicator. ALL fish were landed on the bottom PT nymph. I ended up landing 11 fish in 2 hours. Almost all of them were 12 inch clones that fought like they were larger. I did land a nice 15 inch fish, but decided to not take a picture.
I’ll be tying up size 16 black bead head PT nymphs tonight. I like beads to get the flies to sink more quickly. I also think a black bead adds to the presentation as some fish shy away from shiny beads (not planters though). I’m tying them as incognito bead head PT nymphs lol.
I left the water at 4:00 because I hadn’t ridden my training bike in two days. I drove to Weaverville to use the safety of actual bike lanes. However, the start of the ride was uphill…..aaarrrrggggghhhhh. I couldn’t do it. My legs were burning and my breathing was too hard. I turned around and headed to the Weaverville City section of 299.
I was able to ride 2.5 miles in 15 minutes on a relatively flat bike lane through Weaverville. It was a tough workout for me. So, my starting conditioning is 2.5 miles on a flat road in 15 minutes. It seems like I’ll never get to 70 miles under any conditions, but that is where I will end up.
It was a great day. Tomorrow I plan to do the same things: fish in the mid afternoon and ride a bike in the cool of the evening. Wish me luck.
Tight Lines!