May, 1997
5/5 ASTONISHINGLY the runoff still has not started - at least on Gore Creek. We had wonderful nymph (midges again) fishing on the upper creek for the past couple of days. In fact when we got on the water this morning at around 9:00 it was crystalline. That proved to be a problem for a while as we had not gone to super long leaders with ultimately tiny flies. But eventually the fish developed an appetite for our offerings and we had quite a bit of success.
Friend Sue had wonderful fortune using a very shiny red midge (looked like swanundaze wraps but may have been something closely related). Her fly presentations and control of the drift have improved markedly in the past month and that has to be the reason for her heightened level of success.
Only interesting thing I had happen - aside from landing several fish - was that after hooking a tiny rainbow in one of the eddies below a rock wall, as I was gathering it in a large brown made several passes at the poor thing, but fortunately missed each time. In fact the brown was still trying to grab the bow as I bent over to unhook it. So even our little creeks have sharks in them.
This will be the last note for a while as I head to Corpus Christie tomorrow for a couple of weeks of windsurfing and hopefully some redfish, although that species has managed to elude me for the past few years in the Laguna. If I do catch one this year, you'll definitely read about it here.
5/10: CORPUS CHRISTIE: This year was the dud of all duds - not only for windsurfing but for everything else. The weather was so rotten I left a week early. But after being a dead solid 10 last May, I guess we shouldn't complain too much.
5/18-20: VARIOUS PLACES: The runoff has started in earnest. We've tried a few outings, mostly half-heartedly as it takes a bit of time to adjust to these wild, muddy river conditions. Just a couple of notes - I did catch a handful of brookies in the Gore Creek ponds, all on the same tiny gray midge that worked well everywhere this spring.
Gore Creek itself was a washout, but I didn't use wooly buggers that day which may have accounted for the lack of success. A day later at the confluence of the Gore and Eagle we did have some success for medium browns on black, lead eyed buggers.
And at Homestake Creek (running very high, but clear) last weekend, friend Sue had a couple on and other strikes, but I got blanked. Weather was lousy and/or threatening, so we didn't spend much time on the water.
Hope to get out a bit over Memorial Day weekend, but probably won't have great success due to extremely wild water conditions. Leave for Lake Powell next Wednesday and have high hopes for some good bass & pan fishing down there.
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