Tough Opener

How was everyone's opener?

I went to my "home waters", which is a good sized Erie trib (2 m3/s in the summer) that usually has a lot of steelhead left after opener. My buddy went 0/2 (both steelhead) on his 5 wt, which is to be expected.

But the browns were nowhere to be seen. We fished for the whole day and saw no signs of life (used mainly hare's ear/pheasant tail/prince nymphs and a few minnow patterns). There were tons of caddis shells on the bottom and both BWO's and Brown Caddis were buzzing around everywhere. But no action visible in spite of the very clear water.

Very tough start to the resi season for me. But I'm guessing it was just too cold for any near-surface/surface action. Hopefully this coming weekend will be different with the temps going up a couple degrees.

Hey Will,

We were on a similar stream, and had a similar experience with the resi browns. The water was collllld and so they were pretty inactive. They were stacked up in slower pools, and were only hitting small nymphs (for me, they seemed to like a yellow caddis pupa I had tied in size 18). I had 5 fish on throughout the weekend, but only landed this one (somewhere between 10 or 12" I think):



We saw limited success with other anglers as well - those who did have success were using very small nymphs too. It wasn't until late in the day on Sunday that we saw some browns rising for midges, but it was so few and far between that we stuck with nymphing.

Tight lines!

Cody

Tough opener for me as well going for steelhead. I did what I usually vow not to do and headed to one of the well known spots that are extremely packed. Low and behold relatively few fish were in that area and there wasn't all that many fish being caught around me. We went to a different spot late in the afternoon and had a hay day close to the lake. Looks like its going to be a long spring run this year.

Good job! Definitely tough conditions, but that makes a lot of sense with the smaller nymphs. My typical size 14 Hare's Ear seems to always work on the creek i was on, but that little difference in size sounds like it could have been the difference. Thanks for the tip!

No worries - I've always wanted to try and fish chironomids in the river, and I think these conditions would have been perfect for it, however I didn't have any on me

nice colours on that brown Madoc and a nice photo

I took the kids on Huck Finn Fishing Derby at Uxbridge...didn't really catch anything and the pond was packed. Organizers were giving away goodies for the kids and some free snacks to keep them going. That paid off for me as I was able to make it to my local trib about 5pm...it was slow but managed to hook 8...landed 2. This one was hooked deep but forceps made the job quick and easy...

cork said:

nice colours on that brown Madoc and a nice photo

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Went to the east trib, to one of the most popular spots. Found a spot downstream from the crowds. Only fished for 2 hours and went 5/7. All on black stone flies.

i can't wait for this week to finish to do the same.. do you float or fly fish?>

Unfortunately or fortunately if you don't like crowds I couldn't get out opening day. I had the day off today so I thought I'll head for solitude and small stream brookies. The day was cool, the water cold as the leak in my waders reminded me just how cold. There was some bug activity, small black midges and small tan or brown whatchamacallits, did I mention they were very small like #22 small, nothing like that in my box. Started the first little run with a hares ear, lost one there but feeling optimistic as I'd dialled in at least. Two hours of nothing but a near miss, just one little bugger who was off before I realized he was on. Reached the last spot I planned to fish before the walk of shame to the car. Thought I caught a little splash out of the corner of my eye, hmmm, there's hope yet. Switched it up to a bright as light Cahill and tried to get a cast out, difficult but I managed a small cast and stripped out some line so it could drift a bit. Was rewarded with a little gem. Lost that fly to a tree shortly thereafter, so I put on a classic, Quill Adams with golden pheasant tippet tails I'd tied, this brought another. I thought I'm going to switch flies every fish I catch, I did this two more times in 15 minutes, a Don Bastian floating caddis emerger pattern and a ginger cahill with a cream hackle and ended with the biggest of these little brats.Great end to a day off. [sharedmedia=gallery:albums:185]