Harman's Day 3 Round 2 2011-Morning Session

I managed to get up early again to chase the trout today.  Man mornings are struggle for me.  I really do hate them.  Anyways, it was supposed to rain all day.  Please take note that I said supposed to.  It didn't.  I got up and looked out the window.  It was overcast, gray, and a little windy but no rain.  I torpedoed my medicine, getting old sucks, and headed out to the porch to get dressed so as not to wake the wife up.  As soon as I got out on the porch, I noticed that the person in cabin 9 was gearing up as well.  Doing as well as I did with the pool below our cabin, I felt as though it became a race of sorts.  I had noticed last night that as I left the pool, he moved into it.  This story replays itself the world over I am sure.  One person catches one fish in one location and every other fishermen in the area flocks to it.  What gives?  We both looked at each other as we got dressed.  I am sure he was judging me and my progress as much as I was doing the same to him.  Some times, it pays to be lazy.  I had left my rod rigged the night before so I had less to do.  This in turn meant that I was ready quicker than he was.  Off I went straight to the pool I fished until last light the night before.  Oh and for those that are wondering, I managed to beat the other guy to the pool.

Problem was that the pool was fishing like crap.  I am guessing it was the cold front that moved in over night.  I could see the fish stacked up like cord wood in the pool as well as in the run below it but nothing would bite.  Well let me correct myself.  No self respecting trout would bite.  I managed to catch this guy which made me laugh out loud:

Damn you blogger!  Stop rotating my photos.  Well you all get the idea.  The fly was as big if not bigger than this little guy.  I spent over an hour at this pool working those fish.  I could see them everywhere.  At one point I looked down and saw a brown and a rainbow holding not six feet from me.  Craziness!  Despite that there were fish everywhere, I could not connect with a trout.  At first I got quite a few follows than nothing.  I tried everything.  I threw a ton of nymphs at them.  I could see one bow holding behind a huge rock.  I chucked a size 14 Bead Head Pheasant Tail over there.  Again another perfect drift.  The fly went right over the rock and I watched as the fish swam up to greet it.  I set the hook and the fight was on.  For all of about 10 seconds.  A few quick head shakes and the bow spit the hook out and headed back down towards the bottom.  No luck.  Over an hour at this pool, I decided it was time to move.  All I had to show for the past hour were four creek chubs/fall fish.  Nothing special for sure.

After seeing all the fish rise yesterday at the pool behind cabin 15 I decided to head there.  I got there and noticed that the fish were sipping and  gulping like crazy off the surface.  I, once again, threw everything I could at them to no avail.  I didn't even get a look.  I spent hours there too.  I noticed that the time was approaching 1130.  I had to make a decision soon.  Do I go back, get the dries and come back or just quit for lunch and try again later?  These fish were driving me crazy.  They seemed to be everywhere eating.  I couldn't wait nor could I risk someone getting in the hole.  Therefore, I ran back to the cabin and got the dries.  A quick check of the inventory caused me to spy this gem:

This guy is probably a size 18 black body with white wings and a split tail.  It looked like a winner to me.  I tied it on and headed back to the pool.  You may notice that the knot is rather large for such a small fly.  I was using 5x tippet.  I was afraid to go any lower based on the fish that I saw and the fish that I lost on 6x the days prior.

New fly in hand, I entered the pool and waited.  I decided to pick off the trout so to speak.  I would wait for them to break the surface and then throw the fly towards them and their feeding lane.  It seemed to work as almost immediately I started landing fish.  Over the next hour, I landed four rainbows and lost a number of others.  Not great I know but it was better than nothing at all.  It was already after 1 so I figured I had better head back for some grub.  I have to be honest, I was hesitant to leave.  The wind was calm, it was over cast but in the mid 50's.  Most importantly, the fish were biting.  I was sure they would be biting again in a few hours when I returned.  Stay tuned to see if they were or not.  Here are the photos of the bows: