The Summer of the Woolly Bugger
Went up to Little Mahoning Creek with a friend of mine to fish for trout on a fly (the only way I fish for them). The section we went to was up near Punxatawney, Pennsylvania. where they do the whole ground-hog day thing, yes.
The Little Mahoning is a fairly small creek meaning almost nowhere is it wider than about 10 yards or so and you can wade right across it without much difficulty almost anywhere. Furthermore, it's characterized by what fly-fisherman call "pocket water," that is, much of the stream is shallow enough to be un-fishable -- just because the fish don't have enough room to "hold" in it or it's just too exposed for a trout to be hanging out -- and you have to hunt for the pockets or holes with water deep enough and with enough cover for trout to be hanging out.
Sometimes the search for these pockets or holes can take up an entire day and prove completely useless, especially when you're fishing a piece of water that's brand new to you, as we were on Saturday.
We fished for about 3 hours at two different locations along the Little Mahoning, getting completely blanked and not even seeing a fish, until we got in our cars and headed upstream for one last try at a spot characterized by a long, deep bend in the creek punctuated by a shed-sized boulder that formed two deep channels around it.
I fished the shallow part right below the boulder, so that I could cast into the deep channels on either side. We'd been fishing nymphs all day, but in a fit of desperation, I tied on a black Woolly Bugger, which is a streamer fly and imitates a minnow. It's also, frankly, one of the oldest and most all-purpose trout flies there is, and a personal favorite of mine. Although I love fly-fishing more than just about anything in the world, I am not a great scientist when it comes to fly selection. I mostly fish what are called "generals" like the Woolly Bugger; classic flies that don't really imitate anything specific but which work under most conditions.
Well, despite my efforts to match the hatch, Woolly Buggers are the only thing that's worked for me so far this year and they worked again on Saturday. I noticed fish following my Woolly Bugger immediately, but could not seem to get a strike.
So I went up to the bend in the creek where my friend was fishing, in order to give my "spot" a break. On my first cast, I got a bite, but missed it. A few casts later...BANG...I hooked up with a beautiful sized Brown trout. My friend switched to Woolly Buggers as well and caught three really nice Browns in about 10 minutes. Then I hooked into another one as well.
Some fishermen (in fact lots of them) will brag about catching 30+ fish in a day and tell you they feel disappointed when they have anything less than that kind of success. Well for me, even just catching one trout on a fly in an entire day makes the trip a success (actually, even just getting out on the stream to fish for a couple hours is a success), but to have caught five trout between us in the space of 20-30 minutes on unfamiliar water was just about the best we could hope for.
Also, I learned a pretty valuable lesson: When you're struggling to catch fish, go back to what you've had success with before and what makes you feel confident. This may sound like common advice, even trite, but fly-fishing for trout can be a tough and frustrating game. You are angling for a very finicky, flighty fish you can rarely see and therefore are not even sure whether they're in the water you're fishing at all. Therefore, you are forced to experiment a lot and you can trick yourself into thinking "if I only tie just the right fly on my line" the fish will bite. So you try even more esoteric flies on there and not catch anything. When this starts to happen, it's time to go back to basics like the Woolly Bugger.
All three of the fish I've caught this summer have been on a Woolly Bugger. In fact, on the exact same fly. Thus, I've resolved to fish Woolly Buggers at every opportunity this summer. Go with what works.
Comments