Well with daylight savings time ending and the clocks being changed this weekend tonight was probably my last afterwork fly fishing expedition for the season. Since receiving my 2070 Garcia Wulff replica from Andymanyankee I have been stopping on the way home regulary. Last weeks temperatures here in the northeast were much more pleasant and tonight was pretty raw. I had just a half hour of light to work with when I arrived so started off with a small black woelly bugger that was already rigged on the rod. Worked the elongated pool of the small river from under a bridge on down to the end of the pool with no hits. Light was fading and decided a change in fly was in order. There was a little surface activity in the middle of the pool (probably golden shiners) and so I knew there had to be something hungry in the area. I put on a small Muddler with a black marabu tail. Tossed it downstream towards the bottom of the pool and let it swing. It was still too dry and stayed on top. Nothing touched it. I worked another cast to the right slightly more upstream to a cut in the bank that usually has a fish on station but nothing.
I decided to work up stream more but did a couple of quick rollcasts downstream to see if I could saturate the fly to get it to sink. Once wetted out I did a quick angle change and did a short cast straight out across the current in front of me. The change from down stream to across didn't go too smooth and my cast fell short of the target. I decided I would pick up and make a second attempt. While drawing the line the fly was skating across the surface of the pool and much to my surprise was being hotly pursued and was nailed just in front of me! Saw a flash of olive like green and thought maybe a bass but should have known by the slightly submerged submarine like pursuit and the speed at which the fly was assaulted that it was a nice chain pickeral! It's been a while since I caught one and this one was a decent size around 16". I just hate trying to unhooke these things but they sure are fun to catch
They love this cool weather so nows a good time to get some pickeral here in the northeast. Don't give up on the season just yet....
