There is no Place Like Home

I've returned to one of my favorite local trout creeks in the SB mountains for an epic day of fly fishing with Charles.  This day was one of the best days I have ever had on this creek despite losing my dr slick zinger with my floatant and nippers (this particular zinger design is terrible).  I always lose something when I'm at this creek and last time I lost my fly box.  At least nippers and floatant are relatively inexpensive.  The weather yesterday was warm and sunny, by afternoon the temps slightly dropped and the wind began to stir up.  The runoff has reduced and water clarity has returned.  There was a buffet of insects hatching which made dry fly fishing highly productive.  I saw some large terrestrials such as hoppers and darkling beetles, even some skwala stoneflies.

I started with a size 18 black caddis which produced countless quality fish.  However, most of the fish caught early in the day were dinks, nevertheless they were colorful and pretty.  A small pool just upstream from where we began fishing held a rather large rainbow hunkered down in the depths.  This fish was reluctant to rise for a dry fly.  I was in the process of tying on a nymph dropper and unfortunately it spooked for whatever reason.  The trout looked like it had mass and with a flash it was gone.  

We came across a larger section of water and I switched my pattern to a size 14 stimulator with a size 16 ice hare dropper.  This combo is straight up deadly.  I had multiple takes on the dropper and lost a massive trout from an undercut.  This may have been a brown trout as I was able to see it for a moment before the fly came unbuttoned.   I have yet to catch a brown trout on this creek.  We trekked on and found a large pool where we stopped to fish the inlet. Charles was casting dry flies here and connected with at least a dozen fish.  I was scouting from a slippery granite ledge where I had sighted a large trout hunkered behind a boulder.  I told Charles where to cast, however the big fish was not interested to rise for that particular fly.  The fish vanished and I suspected that it swam upstream just on the other side of the boulder.  I cast my stimulator into a small foam lined pocket, and with an explosive take the fish was on.  This was a big fish for socal creek standards.  It was pulling hard on my Sage Vantage 3wt and fighting on the slick granite with tree branches hanging above my head was sketchy.  It is moments like these where you just wish there was a net at your side.

13-14" rainbow.  Trout in this size range are relatively large for socal creeks.

As the day went on, we caught more fish than we could even count.  I was bummed that the last fish of the day may have been the largest.  Just as we were climbing up and out of a rock wall, we noticed a big take that ended with a tail whip in a pool right in front of us.  I cast the stimi about 3-4 feet above the last take and as it drift down another explosive take ignited the fly.  After a brief moment of feeling the weight of this fish the fly came unbuttoned.  I cant complain much as we caught many quality fish and fishing was on fire that day.  We were addicted and pretty much fished until the sun began to set.  We will be back... before the inferno of summer shuts this fishery down.