My dad recently bought some property and built a cabin in the western Adirondacks. I finally got up here to enjoy some quality time with the family. My dad’s property back’s up to a remote stream, so yesterday I decided to give it a go and see if there were any wild trout. We hiked through the property to get to the water. This creek is nice and remote, and the only other way to access this section besides my dad’s property is a 3-mile hike in. I rigged up with my favorite way for prospecting small streams: a size 16 mini muddler. This fly is like a small Turk’s Tarantula. You can fish the mini muddler as a dry fly up stream and then swing it through a run downstream at the end of your drift. It’s a great way to cover a lot of water. On some of the slower pools, I switched to a Hendrickson Comparadun.
I hooked up with a lot of wild brookies, and they were spread out pretty evenly in different kinds of water. The creek had the classic Adirondack tea color with lots of structure, runs, pools, and pockets. Lots of midge activity on the surface with the occasional Hendrickson. It was an amazing time just exploring and catching these small but aggressive trout.
My time in Colorado is almost done. Jess and I are starting our drive back east tomorrow, so I decided to get back into the Stagecoach Tailwaters one last time. With the access road still closed, I borrowed my neighbors bike to cut down the travel time.
The fishing started slow with temps around 15 degrees when I first arrived. Nymphing zebra midges was the way to go until about 11 o’clock when more trout heads started to look up towards the surface. Black and olive size 20 RS2’s were the next flies that took trout. At about noon, aggressive surface activity picked up and I switched over to Charlie Craven’s size 20 mole fly. This fly did the most damage and was consistently nailing the fish until about 1:30 when the trout began sipping in more of a rhythm. When this started, I still got some on the mole fly, but when I tied on a snowshoe spinner it was instant success until I left. 21 trout in total, 4 on nymphs, 17 on dries. The size range was 8-20″, great colors on the rainbows! Now back to the New Jersey for a week, some fishing with fellow bloggers Chris, Dave, and Zach, then off to the Bahamas in pursuit of bonefish! Thanks Steamboat Springs for everything these past 6 weeks, it has been amazing.
So after last time into the Stagecoach tailwaters, I tied up half a dozen size 18 comparaduns. Well guess what, when I got to the tailwaters today, the fished wanted nothing to do with that fly. Luckily, I also tied up half a dozen RS2’s in size 20 black and olive. I fished only dries and the RS2’s accounted for all of my hookups. A dozen rainbows and one brookie, nice day on the river!
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