September, 2024
9/6: With some good weather in the forecast, I drove out today hoping for some fun on the nearby Crystal River. Got to the stream near Redstone around 10:00 in the morning and headed out on the water starting with a three fly rig of a stimulator indicator fly followed by a couple of smaller nymphs down below. Ugh the fish said. Bad choice.
By the time I'd messed up a couple of nice holes, I finally switched to a small generic hair wing fly and began to have some success. In the next couple of hours, I had some decent fun on the local rainbows who liked the looks of the smaller sized surface fly.
Released a good half dozen in the 12- 14 inch range and missed connections on a few larger fish who were too fast for my aging reactions. Walked back to the van for a quick lunch and headed downstream to another favorite spot, but..................... as usual Mother Nature did not want to cooperate again. She started shedding tears of rain as I tried to exit the car to try some more casting. At that point the day was over - for the umpteenth time this summer. Here's the short video story of the day:
9/16: Today was my first and probably last trip to cast on the local Eagle River this year. Seems really stupid to not fish it more often, but as rotten as our summer weather has been and with the number of guides taking over the best stretches when the water was running properly, I simply didn't have the interest.
Drove to the county fairgrounds about ten thirty in the morning and walked up to try my favorite hole. Using mostly a double nymph rig, I struck out completely after nearly an hour of casting. Threw in the towel and headed to Wendy's for a biggie bag of lunch. Wolfed that down and drove a short space to my "favorite" left handed water just east of town. Kept trying the useless nymphing until the tricorythodes flitting in the air started to draw some mouths to the surface.
Since I don't commonly fish with those tiny guy flies, all I have to use (that I can partially see on the water) were a few #20 and 22 comparaduns. Oh yeah, they did work - but my eyes did not. Must have missed one to two dozen strikes before finally hooking a local rainbow that quickly unhooked itself from my barbless #20. OK, eventually I started to release a few fish. It was a lot of fun. Don't get to fish this way very often any year.
The only other flies that had a bit of success were a #22 RS-2 and a #20 loop wing spent style fly (that I truly could not seen in the surface film).
After a good hour on this stretch of water I headed upstream to the red canyon section which is commonly decent in the fall. Today it was not - at least not for me. Here's the short video of the activity:
Last Logbook Entry � for previous day
9/19 = 29: This fall's trip back to our favorite fishing spot on earth was somewhat different. It came during a week of mixed spring and neap tides. While the guides who work here prefer "springers" to "neaps", I'm the reverse of that preference. Fishing from the edge of the island as I do without the use of a guide, I need the fish to hang around longer while the guides in boats want fish to move faster around the flats to give their clients more options.
The good low tides on the main spring days let me finally do some casting off the edge of the reef at the lagoon between Alphonse and Francois. It was fun back there since you never know what the next cast will bring. Released several types of snappers, grouper, trevally, and a couple of species I cannot identify.
Unfortunately we also had pretty vicious winds for the first six days. Made the blind casting I do all day long much tougher. The only thing that saved me was by being able to use both arms to cast instead of being single handed that way.
The bone fishing was as good as always. Sizes were decent though I didn't catch anything of double digits. Never did hook one of the larger "wolf pack" bluefins. Nevertheless the fishing was fine enough to lure me back again either this coming January or next September for sure.
Here's the down and dirty video of the trip.
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