Beetle Mania

I once believed that the best terrestrial fishing could only be found out west, but I was corrected a few days ago by the fish living in the Davidson River. Having fished the catch and release section and the hatchery quite a bit in the past few months, I decided to give the private water operated by DRO a try. Let me say it is a high quality section of water and a freak show of trout proportions. There are large high quality trout holding everywhere. Now on to the tales…

My day began with Nick Roberts at 1pm. He was booked for the morning, but I wanted to do a full day, so we went with a 1pm to 8:30pm trip. I am glad that we did. The sun was high and the air was warm when we started, so we headed to a shaded run with a nice plunge pool that oxygenates the water. With the sun directly overhead nymphing seemed to be a good approach for this particular run. We tied on the usual fare – small, subtle nymphs and midges. I’m quickly becoming a huge fan of the midges, and have started to fish them more and more often. You can’t argue with the results.

After a few minutes of eye adjustment the trout began popping out and they were holding in all the textbook places. The drifts were often quite delicate with many swirling and boiling currents. The take was very light often with the thingamabobber showing no sign other than a slight pause. Our 3 hour session in this pool was awesome, and we left with 6 fish to hand on small midges including one beast of a rainbow that taped at 22″.

As the golden hours approached, we switched tactics opting to fish a beetle pattern on a “dry or die” bender. I was a bit skeptical at first, but as usual Nick knew what he was talking about when he told me of epic beetle fishing. We tied on a size 10 PMX beetle, and headed for a riffle that fed into a pool. Just looking at the water would make any trout fisherman giddy, as it is obviously trout heaven. I began casting the beetle up and across the riffle, and soon enough there were fish taking huge swipes. At one point I went 3 for 3 with 3 hookups in 3 casts. Ridiculous would be an understatement. It was obvious that I hadn’t fished a dry fly in awhile as I missed many of the first takes – especially the ones which were downstream from me. (Does any one have any suggestions on hooksetting for downstream dry fly takes?) I eventually got it dialed in and fish started making it to the net. Let’s just say these fish loved this beetle and I love watching them crush it on top.

Feeling a little more confident with the dry fly up to snuff we headed to my favorite type of water for our last hour and a half – flat, gin clear, dry fly water. I didn’t think there was any way this beetle would continue to be effective, and yet again I was wrong. As we worked our way along the bank, I spotted a fish holding behind a rock about 10 feet out from the bank. Not wanting to disturb the fish by getting into the water, I simply pulled some line off my reel and plopped the beetle straight down onto the water surface with a tightline nymphing style cast. I watched in disbelief as a trout I hadn’t even seen moved off it’s holding position 8 feet away charged at this beetle and took it in a swirling spray. In my excitement, I set the hook too quickly and missed the fish. Bummer. This was the first “lateral line” take I had ever witnessed. It was so cool to watch the predatory instinct of a big trout in action.

After this encounter we made our way into the water, and began working upstream with 40 to 50 foot casts to avoid spooking the fish. Nick exited the river on the opposite bank while I continued to try and work a few fish that were holding behind rocks. It wasn’t long before Nick told me to pick up and come to join him because of a monster fish. We have coined them “donkey kong” class trout. After joining Nick on the bank and sighting the fish, I made my way back downstream about 40 feet before re-entering the water. Nick relayed the fish’s movements and behavior to me as we tried a few casts. With time fading and my hope as well, Nick called in a new casting location, and I dropped the fly on the water with a nice beetle “SPLAT!” This got the fish’s attention, and after about 10 seconds of drift, it smashed the fly. This time, the hook set was good, and the fight was on. Following a mellow 10 minutes battle, we landed this awesome “donkey kong” class rainbow trout at 8:07 pm.

These are the days I enjoy most on the water. Things seemed to build in crescendo all the way until the very end. Literally everything I learned on the water throughout that day culminated with this final fish. It was a special moment on a special river. I hope you all also enjoyed your own special moments these weekend – after all that is what trout fishing is really all about.