4/22... Hammock Creek

Woke up around 10am.. Looked out the window and saw it was sprinkling... Wasn't planning on doing any fishing today as I saw yesterday that it was supposed to be raining all day long.. Went to Weather Underground and looked at the weather maps which showed a huge gap between systems and decided I would go out and do a little fishing....

Got on the road some time around 11am.... Made sure to pack up the rain jacket.. Just in case... and packed my 2wt.. 5wt.. and spinning rod.. just to cover all bases... Decided I would head south of I-90... First 4 spots I went to all had at least 4 cars at them.. Oh yeah.. No one is working today... Totally forgot that part... After flipping through my maps I decided I would keep driving south and check out a section of stream that I had never fished before... When I arrived things were looking good.. no rain.. not too chilly.. the section of stream I arrived at looked amazing..

Through on my waders and my rain jacket.. wasn't sure how long I would be out... and it had been sprinkling on and off during the whole drive.. packed my jacket with all the gear I needed... decided I would take the spinning rod with me.. Had been sometime since I was stream side with a spinning rod.. and this was a brand new 6'6" St. Croix Triumph that I had yet to use.. bought it earlier in the year to replace the one I broke during my trip up north...

I walked downstream for probably a good 1.5-2mi... Finally I decided I should turn around and start walking back up stream and start fishing.. I could have continued walking down stream.. but forgetting my watch and not knowing how long it took me to walk to where I was I played it safe... but there was plenty more potentially amazing water down stream of me...

As soon as I started to turn around and start fishing back to my car... it slowly started raining.. nothing severe... actually the whole afternoon it rained.. with a few times here and there it would stop.. never once saw the sun.. cloudy.. gloomy.. rainy day.. thankfully that makes for a very productive day on the water!

Rain makes for easy presentation.. For one it breaks up the top of the water.. making it tough for the trout to see you.. and even tougher for them to differentiate a spinner from a rain drop.. a couple times throughout the day I had trout take my spinner before it had even started spinning.. a couple were even as it was hitting the water.. this combination of elements for the day made for some very aggressive fish...

First cast.. nothing but a mess of line.. cleaned it up.. retied my spinner.. next cast same thing..

First lesson of the day... Fireline Crystal SUCKS!  I will be removing the remainder from my spool and going back to PowerPro..

I basically cast to anything that looked deep and/or covered up.. lots of over hang and downed trees made for some great structure that when cast to.. Casting up stream through runs produced some nice trout.. but my best trout were had  by casting across stream and letting the current sweep my spinner into downed trees and low overhanging trees... This was my proven method when I almost skipped a hole because it seemed like a snagging catastrophe waiting to happen.. But I gave it a shot.. walked up above it.. cast across and let my spinner sweep back to my side of the stream and bam!  I pull out 15-16" Brown.. followed by 3 more ~12".. most of the trout that I caught were in the 10-12" range.. with a handful below that.. and maybe 5-6 that were bigger than that... ended the day with somewhere around 30 trout to hand.. and at least double that that chased or hit my spinner..

When i got back to my car... I had realized I wasn't too sure about where I exactly was.. DNR maps aren't the greatest marked maps in the world.. and I knew where I was.. but none of the roads in the area where labeled on the map... So I just drove until I got service and used Google Earth to save my ass... That's what I get for forgetting my Garmin...

All in all a good day.. When it rains.. it may pour... But one thing is for certain.. When it rains.. I reign supreme! =)

Something bigger got a hold of this guy... Unfortunately I didn't find him..

Close up of the previous trout's tail