Monday, March 14, 2016

Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} jig buggers on accotink stockers

I love the combo of jig-heads and a fenwick :-)  Sounds like something I'd fish.

The jigheads actually hang up less because the hook almost always rides upright.  You can drag them through some amazing riprap without getting hung up.  That and when you do break off, the price is a lot less than a Tungsten bead.



Carl

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Carl Zmola

On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 1:25 PM, TurbineBlade <doublebclan@gmail.com> wrote:
I had a few more pictures, but the file size restriction forced me to delete some -- no biggie, people know what rainbow trout look like.  

Like anything else, if you fish there enough you'll stumble upon what works and where the fish are.  I walked down there 15 minutes ago and the stream is a little too turbid and high for good fishing IMO.  Not terrible, but a bit off.  Note that Todd on here knows the stream better than I do and has reported catching fish on days where I couldn't find good water. 

It doesn't take much to mess up Accotink, but it also recovers really quickly.  I have a log of the USGS readings for the times I've fished it (and every other stream we've fished) so I'll know what to expect eventually.  

Gene

On Monday, March 14, 2016 at 11:05:33 AM UTC-4, Ryan D wrote:
Oh ya I remember running into you.  I did catch one or two that day.  I think I've been skunked every time I've been there since that day. Might have to hit it after or before work this week to see if my luck has changed. 

On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 9:00 AM, TurbineBlade <doubl...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ryan -- Didn't I run into you one day last season up at the annoying parking lot?  Recall that I had caught nothing (?) I think at that point and you had caught a few right?  I'm bad with names and there are a few Ryans on here.  

Accotink trout fishing is not like wlid trout fishing -- you can read the water and fish great pockets and do everything right, but if the fish just aren't there you won't get bit.  And that can change from literally one day to the next (I know, I've done it may times). The fish tend to move around more like a stillwater in a lot of sections.  If some of the spots I've previously caught fish don't pay out, I tend to just look for anywhere that has a decent pocket of water where the bottom isn't visible.  If there's a riffle at the head of the pool fairly nearby, all the better.  Also, rootwads from large trees are good hiding places.  I saw a small trout jam itself up under a root yesterday in a very odd contortion.  I would have missed it had I not seen it dart up there.  I feel like I could have walked up and touched him without him moving.  Being a predator is fun -- I really enjoy observing animal behavior.   

One thing trout do (stockers, wild fish, etc.) that is so stereotypical it should have a name is when they sharply move toward a fly, turn away completely, turn back, turn away, turn back, etc. and then either take it or simply move away.  It looks like an absurd inability of the fish to make up its mind and really excites the angler.  Everyone will know what I'm talking about.  I call it "acting fishy" but I really don't see other fish species do that, so maybe it would be "trouty".  If I get a "fishy" stocker at any point, I'll spend more time trying to get him.  About 60% of the time you can.  Catfish may be the most stoic to me -- they either move for it fairly immediately, or they don't indicate interest in any way whatsoever. Smallmouth bass make similar sharp, fast movements underneath some topwater lures I've fished.  

Someone should write a book about fish strike behavior.  

We fished on the SNP Sat and had an *average day (~20 or so).  Saw a LOT of other anglers though, and found a net.  If anyone lost a brook trout-sized net and can tell me where they lost it, I'll bring it to a beer tie.  

Gene

On Monday, March 14, 2016 at 8:24:30 AM UTC-4, Ryan D wrote:
You caught 22 trout on Accotink? I suddenly feel terrible about myself.

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:43 PM, TurbineBlade <doubl...@gmail.com> wrote:
To decompress from flying all over the place in those aluminum missiles I despise, I got in some "backyard" fishing on Accotink today.  I thought the slight drizzle would deter most folks, and to my eyes it seemed to deter everyone else (other than mountain bikers and a few dog walkers).  

I started near home, flipping a fly into a few pockets where I've caught trout in the past 2-3 years but didn't turn up anything.  Moving upstream, I finally hooked up with a small rainbow in another of the reliable, well-known stocker pockets closer to Wakefield.  I also observed a few trout holding near the bottom, seemingly uninterested in moving for a fly.  This is great to me -- it seemed to suggest that the trout were fairly spread out and had been "stung" enough in those spots to not be ripped out by poachers...well, at least not as easily as poachers probably prefer things.

I then moved MUCH further up near the "bridges" as Art put it.  I've caught a lot of fish up there in previous years, but only got 2 in that stretch.  Again -- there was almost no one up there, and that's the "everyone and their dog, parking lot of noise and annoyance".  I didn't feel like going further up, so I chose to try a few deeper areas that I hadn't previously fished.  One looked decent, but had high banks, overhanging limbs, and basically required a cross-shoulder roll cast.  With a lead-head jig bugger, this requires sort of 1.5-2 roll casts, as the sink rate of the fly is pretty decent.  

Anyway -- if you look at the gnarly arms reaching down (in the picture) you'll see that it's a spot most people would never even consider.  

But - I caught 6 fish in a row in that very spot.  

After that spot dried up, I moved to yet another....totally crappy fly casting spot like that one and caught another 6.  Maybe there's something to trying something different.  On the way back, another 1-2 holes had a lone fish willing to tangle with me.  Overall, it was a productive "stocker" day and the fish were really quite spread out.  

Anyway -- I ended up with 22 trout on the day, all rainbows, and all but one 14" were in the 9-12" range.  I also caught 3 really pretty creek chubs, and 2 green sunfish.  That's also a good sign!  

I caught everything on a "jig bugger", with just a marabou tail and ice dub body.  The lead-heads were some cheap Walmart ones (1/64 oz I think) we had in our spinning gear from a few years ago that I figured made the same (or more) sense as putting a tungsten bead on a hook, putting the hook into your vise, wrapping on lead wire, and then saying that "it's not a jig".  My concern that the eye would jam the hook gap and affect "hooking" was unfounded.  Those suckers hook fish as well as anything else. If anything, they seem to hold even better.   

I used a 6' leader of 30-20-10 pound mono (big game).  The 10-pound mono dia measures out to something like -1x tippet.  The fly rod is over 40 years old and made of fiberglass.  You don't need to be technical to catch fish.  ;)  

Take care folks!  It looks like this thing has been pretty active while I was in Orange County listening to how various state and federal wildlife control agencies kill mammals.  The highlight was listening to a respected ethologist (who worked with Konrad Lorenz) talk about wolves.  Guy was a rockstar.  

Gene

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