You know those days when if you get up early enough you can get almost three hours of outdoors recreation in before you start your work day? Well, there aren’t many of those left this year as I’ve noticed peaking out my kitchen window this week while sipping my morning coffee. Feeling the need to take advantage of the mornings I have left, I made a plan to get out at sunrise this morning and try to tussle with a musky, pike, or even carp below the spillway on Yellow Creek.
There were no cars in the parking lot, which I guess you’d expect at that hour in the middle of July, far removed from peak trout fishing. I made the long hike to the spillway and tied on the big black and orange musky fly I got with my starter kit from Musky Fool. I know it has a name but I don’t recall what it is. It doesn’t really matter because it didn’t draw any strikes. I did see a decent musky lurking and at one point it looked like it may have followed my fly, but that was as close as I came. I tried one of my other “big” flies but go the same result.
Eventually I gave up and headed down to Carp Pool to see if I might be able to entice a bite. Now that I have the right gear with my 11 weight Echo rod and Reddington Behemoth reel, I have plenty of confidence I’ll land a carp when I eventually hook one. I tied on a wooly bugger and headed downstream. There were a few carp in Carp Pool, but not as many as I remember from previous trips. I put the bugger right in front of them numerous times with no strikes. The water was quite clear and when you can see them, they can see you. It’s an uphill battle.
I decided to move down to Rock Trench where the carp and two pike were hanging out on my last couple trips. On the way down I threw into a small isolated pool that was pretty deep and fast moving hoping to entice a smallmouth. Much to my surprise, a trout darted out of the current and swiped at my offering. I checked the water temperature and it was 75 degrees so that was a big shocking. I threw my fly into the pool a couple more times and sure enough a small rainbow took a bite and I landed a trout in July! I will say you can get them in and released pretty quickly when you’re using a heavy setup, and that’s critical when the water is this warm. I didn’t have a net and that cost me the opportunity to get a quick photo because I didn’t want to handle the fish.
At the start of Rock Trench I danced my bugger along the side of the big rock and got a nice strike immediately. Upon setting the hook I quickly realized it was a smallmouth on the end of my line. He wasn’t big, but he put up a good fight and I was proud to catch him. After that, I toyed with the carp and pike a bit but quickly realized it was an uphill battle given the clear water conditions. It was time to go home. It’s amazing how much fun you can have in just a couple of hours if you just give yourself the chance.