(cue: the final countdown)In scoping out a place to have a bachelor party camp-out I spent a weekend at union valley reservoir off of Highway 50. I forgot to bring bowls, spoons, stove fuel, and a flashlight. I remembered cookies, my vest, rods, reels, waders and every fly I own. Go figure.
Despite having to overcome the challenge of eating cereal without spoons or bowls, the wife and I had a great time camping out and I even managed to get some fishing in. Starting out I caught one ugly stocked trout on a sheep creek special and then caught a few smallies. I caught a couple of them while slow stripping a flashy woolly bugger for trout. Since I had all my bass flies with me, I went to stripping all sorts of rubber-legged, flashy, jigging action flies with erratic twitches and strips and only got a few hits. In the end I went through a pile of laboriously tied creations but nothing could beat slow-retrieving that darn flashy woolly bugger (in olive). Go figure.
Alas I never really caught anything of good size but I was happy nonetheless catching these little guys all day-- worth the $22.00/night fee plus the $20.75 for a two-day license *grits teeth* yeah I guess so:
bring the frog patterns next time... and the bowls
Wooly buggers catch fish.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotal evidence #146,673
Me and Andy and a few others have been fishing smallies pretty hard the last few years. I got a few patterns to show ya. :)
With your kind of experience and your luck at Union Valley, I think I'll avoid it, at least for a while.
ReplyDeleteMark
Dan: I definitely want to see those patterns :-)
ReplyDeleteShoreman: Well in truth my experience with smallies on the fly rod was practically nil until this trip-- so don't write it off yet (though there are a lot of other lakes that offer better opportunities in that area for sure)