Monday, December 10, 2012

Birthday Fishing with a Poet!



Matt Smythe - AKA the fishing Poet - Holds a beautiful post spawn female brown trout.

Last week I had the opportunity to get out and fish for my birthday.

I also had the opportunity to meet up with a friend of mine Matt Smythe AKA the Fishing Poet.

Matt is a writer and a darn good one at that. In fact it is his profession. But over this past year he has taken his passion of the outdoors and slammed it head first into that professional world of writing. He left his desk job, for the unknown and unproven grounds of the freelance world. A brave man indeed!
A nice lake run rainbow/steelhead taken on the swing.

Our goal for the morning was to search the waters of a local tributary and try and tempt its finned inhabitants into taking a fly or two. Lucky for us it was more of the latter.

Matt was running a little late, so he encouraged me to venture out before his arrival. I did, and found two fish willing to take a streamer. One of which was taken on the swing.

Upon Matt’s arrival I was very excited as I had already hooked two beautiful rainbows, landing them both, and had seen at least another seven or eight fish on my walk down to our meeting place.

A bright female steelhead that ate an egg pattern. Photo by Matt Smythe
We set up shop at a favorite pool and began to put our flies to work.

Matt hooked up within that first half hour, and I ran down to help him land his first fish of the day, a gorgeous post spawn female brown trout. A few photos later and she was released.

My last fish of the day. A nice big male with two beautiful red stripes. Photo by Matt Smythe
Over the course of the next couple of hours we each hooked a few more fish, landing only one. But before we left for the day, I had the opportunity to hold one more fish. A gorgeous male rainbow that displayed not one red stripe, but two! A fitting end to a great morning birthday fly fishing session. 

Thanks Matt for joining me on a very memorable day….although I doubt I had to twist your arm very hard to get you out there!

Until next time…………

13 comments:

Matt Smythe said...

Yea, definitely no arm twisting required! More twisting my own schedule. It was a great day. Looking forward to getting back out that way soon!

bfly said...

Yes Sir! Black out a date in March or early April and you'll be just fine!

Unknown said...

I wonder how that got through the captcha? Great looking fishies Brian and Matt! I'm hoping to get into some trib fishing next year, just not equipped or knowledgeable enough to to do it this year. These kinds of posts seem to help though, I'm always inspired to go tie an egg or streamer after I read them! Now just need to figure out where to go...lol. Happy holidays!

bfly said...

Stop by anytime Dale....I'll hook you up!

Unknown said...

Its looking like I'll have the morning of Christmas Eve to go possibly get some frostbite for a few hours lol. I was originally thinking about Oatka, thought I'd go with what I know since I've never fished in temps that cold.

bfly said...

Oatka should be good. Make sure to check the water gauge before you go. If it's in the 2.4 - 2.6 range than nymphing and small streamers would work well, if it's higher than that go with big nymphs and also try large streamers....like 3.5 - 4.5 inches long.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tips Brian, I've never tied really big streamers before, your friend Lucas Carroll tied an articulated double bunny a while back. You think something like that's the ticket? I guess I'll have to bring a thermometer with me to see if they'll even want to move, or would the water still have some heat in it since its been so warm?

bfly said...

Dale - Oatka has spring influences throughout the creek and that is where the fish will be holding near throughout the winter. Deeper pools will also hold plenty of fish. Dead drifting pink, grey, and olive scuds along with black all purpose nymphs and hare's ears in sizes 14-20. With clear low water small midge larvae and pupae in sizes 20-24 will work well in brown and black. As for the streamers - I fish a variety of colors. Black, white, olive and white, grey and white, olive, brown and yellow. If you just want to try and catch a bunch of fish, and size isn't an issue, than fish smaller streamers. Anything in a 10-6. If you just want to target the bigger fish, than go with the big stuff, even double bunnies. But expect fewer fish.

Unknown said...

Thanks so much Brian, hopefully I'll report back on Monday with some good results.

Unknown said...

That is a slam of a day. Nice last fish! Good fishing with good friends is a good day.

bfly said...

Joel D. - Well said!!!! Thanks for stopping by.

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Unknown said...

I like the last fish you caught. It's a really eye-catching fish that I've seen. Love It!

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