10-13-2016, 11:39 PM
After some good tips here, I went to strawberry yesterday afternoon with a float tube and fly rod. Arriving around 4:30 at Haw's Point, I picked up a quick fish on an articulated sparkle minnow streamer. I then missed the next two, which prompted me to put on a size 16 prince nymph behind it. I then caught a large cut, between 20 and 21 inches. As I got it close to the tube, I saw than an even larger cut was slashing back and forth at the smaller one. It looked like the larger one was trying to take the sparkle minnow, which was a foot above the hooked fish. I never hooked him, though. After that I caught two more on the nymph.
By then it was getting toward dusk, and a few fish started to rise close to shore. I switched to a chernobyl ant, with the same trailing nymph. I found--as per someone else's advice the other day--that if I got the ant close to a rising fish, they would come and take it--or the nymph. It worked best stripping the ant back in the way that you might work a gurgler. The first time I saw a swirl behind the ant, I hooked up on a fish that had taken the nymph but not pulled the ant under at all.
Strikingly, the fish were sometimes just a few feet from shore. I had never seen anything exactly like it. I also do not know what they were feeding on. I quit at dark with 6 trout on 9 takes--three over 20 inches. All cutthroats. Sorry no pictures--I need to get a camera that I don't fear dropping out of my float tube.
One other remarkable thing. After I pulled my tube back to my truck and got ready to go, they started rising again in the moonlight. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself. The water remained very calm, and the bright moon made the surfacing fish visible from the bank. If I go again, I'm going to take a jitterbug or popper and see if they will hit that. Of course, that will probably be the last time this happens.
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By then it was getting toward dusk, and a few fish started to rise close to shore. I switched to a chernobyl ant, with the same trailing nymph. I found--as per someone else's advice the other day--that if I got the ant close to a rising fish, they would come and take it--or the nymph. It worked best stripping the ant back in the way that you might work a gurgler. The first time I saw a swirl behind the ant, I hooked up on a fish that had taken the nymph but not pulled the ant under at all.
Strikingly, the fish were sometimes just a few feet from shore. I had never seen anything exactly like it. I also do not know what they were feeding on. I quit at dark with 6 trout on 9 takes--three over 20 inches. All cutthroats. Sorry no pictures--I need to get a camera that I don't fear dropping out of my float tube.
One other remarkable thing. After I pulled my tube back to my truck and got ready to go, they started rising again in the moonlight. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself. The water remained very calm, and the bright moon made the surfacing fish visible from the bank. If I go again, I'm going to take a jitterbug or popper and see if they will hit that. Of course, that will probably be the last time this happens.
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