Fall fishing on the Oatka

This past week and a half I have been making the short drive to Oatka creek to try and catch a trout on my new 7' Beaver meadow 2 weight fly rod. And up until this Wednesday I was batting a big fat zero! My problem has been trying to get into a good spot to fish. And up until this past Wednesday the parking area has been full of cars with fellow fly fisherman trying desperately to take advantage of an ever dwindling morning trico hatch. This has left me trying to find my own piece of water to fish where there is trout and no fly fishermen. It has been a difficult task to say the least.

Okay.....Wednesday morning I dropped Ethan off at pre-school and drove to the Oatka hoping and praying that I would be the only one that decided to fish that morning. And to my delight, I was! I quickly got my gear ready and slipped on my waders. I then jogged my way up to the "honey hole" Yes I jogged. I would have run, but it is very difficult to do wearing waders, a pack, net and rod. So I jogged.

I came in below the "honey hole" and worked my way across the stream and up to the spot I had been waiting weeks to fish. Tying up my nymph and indicator proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Especially when I can clearly see at least 30-40 fish holding in the pool. Some of the trout looked really big too! I pulled out a bunch of line and began casting and drifting right in the middle of all those fish. It took maybe 6 drifts with a #16 blood worm pattern, and I was into my first fish on my new 2 weight. The fish went airborne several times before I got it into the net. And after a short onshore battle, I unhooked it and let it go. Okay....now I could take a deep breath. The pressure was off. I could just concentrate on getting into some bigger fish. But, after hooking several more fish and landed none of them, I realized that it was not going to be that easy. I did land one more trout before I had to leave, but I had landed only 2 out of the 6 fish I hooked. That is the way it goes. It is fishing after all....not catching.

Thursday - Ethan wanted to go fishing with dad, so headed back to the honey hole. This time I brought my 4 weight in the hope that it would solve my poor landing record. I was thinking that I heavier and longer rod would help eliminate some of that, but it didn't. I came to the conclusion that it was not the equipment that was the problem, it was the fly fisherman.

The fishing was pretty good. Not great, but good. We caught 2 trout out of about 6 or 7 we hooked in 2 hours of fishing. Some of the trout were pretty good sized, but after a few big head shakes they were gone. Ethan proved to be a very good "net man" as he helped me land the first fish of the morning and the last. All fish took a #16 blood worm pattern and a #18 gray scud. Ethan also scrapped the bottom of the stream with the net looking for bugs. We found many scuds, small water beetles, and an isonychia nymph. We had a great time together.

The tributary season is here!! Orleans Outdoor has been posting daily reports on the Oak. Today he reported a good number of fish up by the dam. Sandy will have fish soon. Hopefully I will be able to report on that next week!!