Roy Bridge

Took a personal day from work and rode up to the Valley & Ridge with my wife, stopping at Buck Hill Brewery and Restaurant near Blairstown for lunch, taking the road out of Blairstown to Millbrook Village--where we spoke to a number of people in early American costume--and driving onward to Buttermilk Falls where I engaged photography I found peculiarly difficult, though a few pictures might be good. Would be best to shoot here after rain for more waterfall effect. As you may infer from my photo of the Big Flatbrook, water is low everywhere. Except for the South Branch below Spruce Run Reservoir getting pumped out.

I found a spot to fish with my six-weight unexpectedly. I had thought it was immediately off NPS 615, but I found it off that road leading way back to the Falls. Water was so clear that four- or five-foot depths were laid bare to light and any trout must have hidden under whatever rocks. The Big Flatbrook stocked with 1710 trout on Thursday the 12th, there surely are a few in this hole, but a thorough casting practice yielded none, and we drove on to my favorite spot at Roy Bridge.

Here the situation was different. The run with six-foot depth underneath did not flow well enough to support my confidence, but I saw a riser in the riffle leading in. That fish began to make some commotion, and by the time I got into casting position, I side-armed a cast (with Wooly Bugger attached) that worked beautifully, emphasis on cast to suggest this sort of success, getting that olive Bugger directly in front of a trout with its back exposed, the water about two or three inches deep. I soon saw that's about all it is for now. Four or five inches in front of that trout, the Bugger couldn't be ignored, and the trout seemed to strike, but I reared back on nothing, and the Bugger got snagged high up in a tree. Before I could snap it off, prepared to go back to our Civic and retie, the trout darted by me--rainbow about 14 inches--and on down into that run I mentioned.

I tried the run again thoroughly, then moved up to the area of Roy Bridge itself. I cast to a few intermittent risers, though nothing seemed to be hatching--I'm no expert at hatches--but I did not go back to the car for my vest and dry flies. The water had virtually no flow, dead calm, and I guess the subconscious inference of just letting a dry fly be on a stationary surface dissuaded me from trying, though now I think a little more involvement--or had I more time to get involved--could have at least piqued interest. I did see just a few bugs over the water of about size 10.

Instead, I was stripping a weightless, olive-shaded streamer with a little red on its nose, and though the water is deep here, I figured that as a few trout were coming up, weightless would work. If it would work. It didn't. My time was limited. But I certainly got some casting in, and above all, witnessed trout present.


http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/05/flatbrook-fly-fishing-brown-trout-on.html