After a brief walk through the woods, we come to the confluence of two streams. The smaller of the two holds natives, and upstream from this point you can find natives. They are not supper common on the main stream though, regrettably. Over fishing is the culprit. The main stream, which here looks horribly low, is stocked about 200yds below where I was standing, and occasionally the stocking truck rolls up a trail on the other side dropping fish along the way. Thus, guys fish the tar out of it April through June.... Conversely the little stream rarely gets fishing pressure. RARELY. And though it's not loaded with wild trout, they are there and catchable.
This big hemlock met it's match years ago, but the forest it originated from still stands strong around it.
Soon, the beautiful green ferns will be golden, and then they will shrivel, almost overnight and evaporate for the winter. For now, they are still very lush and green!
About to leave, I walked the kid's over to a bridge over the main river (spot that gets stocked I noted in the first paragraph). The pool to the left here is always good for many trout until about the middle of June. Even now they are there, but just the ones that dodged hundreds of flies, lures, bait's the first few ice free months of the year.
Someone had built a really nice karin here, and It felt like something worth a photo. It should stand until a lot of water falls and the stream rises, or, winters ice shelf pushes it over. Pretty cool.
Sunday I got a little time to zip out and fish the Swift. What you see here, are my attempts to take pictures with my cell in a waterproof case I got through TU. it's one sided, so I had to try and set the phone on "selfie" mode if you will, and then take a pic with the phone facing away from me... Not as easy as it may sound... and it does not sound that easy.
Right away I caught a few brookies. They have always been on this stream, but recently, be it increased organic matter in the river improving habitat (fallen trees) or something else, these wild little guys are really exploding in numbers, and will eat any thing that comes by. they are 3-6" of furry!
This one really cracked me up, because my shot was so bad all I got was my thumb :)
I ended up with 4-5 nice rainbows and many more little brookies on beetles (#14's), and rusty spinners (#20). Picture taking ended with the attempts above. I received some good advice on cam's and I think Ill try and get one together for 2015.
Thanks for reading - fun weekend.
Will
