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July...the Summer Doldrums, but Good Variety and a Few Highlights

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Jim C.:
July was yet another month of warm temps. and low rainfall.  The broken record played on, but there were fish to be found when I tried a bunch of options and stayed patient.

Early in the month, cool nights offset warm days.  Even with limited rain and flows, there were spots in the foothills that had trout-friendly water temps for the most part.  With that said, temps were marginal  before too long as the area baked.  I took  few or very quick pics since I was in the C&R mode.  Even if temps were OK, the fish were picky and I had to run through a variety of flies to entice bites.  Nice challenge and also some scenery to enjoy (sometimes I get carried away with pics that don't include fish)  ;D.  I got a batch of stocked  browns, a surprising number of native brookies, my first stocked brookie of the year, and countless fallfish. 











I did get into a fairly decent brown in the run pictured after going  through a laundry list of flies and getting a take on a Squirmy Wormy hanging under a Yellow Humpy.





I also had an encounter with dinosaur brown in the foam at the base of this dam.  Very impressive snout poking up to sip naturals which I couldn't match.  Sometimes, casting something outlandish will trigger an explosion and it did in this case.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the target species and the tussle blew the pool :P



After July 7th, nearby stream temps were 70* or warmer almost constantly.  On top of that, higher elevation spots were nearly bone dry.



Time to rest the trout and move on to more temp-resistant options.  A couple times a year, I'll pull a night shift on warm water species.  Often fun, and 2022 was no exception.  The white perch weren't as big as in years back, but the crappies were decent.  By the end of the evening, my headlamp batteries had little juice, barely lit the bottom, and made for some trial and error through the marsh and woods on the way out :o







I also tried a salty outing.  I got into a few mackerel, tons of cunner that wouldn't leave jigged spoons alone, but no pollock.  It was a warm day and the scenery was noteworthy......mostly for undocumented reasons ;)









An evening with largemouths chasing a hatch of dragonflies also provided a diversion.  The water was low and navigating shoreline weeds/grass was interesting, but there was lots of action on poppers.













Late in the month, there were a couple of scattered rains.  Not drought busters by any means, but enough to bump flows in some favored high elevation areas with cool enough water temps.  It was a buggy hike in through some pretty dense cover.  The camera went wacko with so many branches and plants to focus on!



Reaching the stream, I made a quick note of grass taking hold in a crack in a rock.   After that, a surprising number of quality native brookies came out to play, along with double digits of small wild 'bows...not big, but bright and wildly acrobatic.

















The highlight of the outing came when I ran into a surface-feeding trout between the white water and the ledge to the left in the pic below.



The first cast led to a solid grab on a green emerger trailing off an EHC.  Nice tussle on the 3-weight, and by the red flash of the trout's tail, I was counting on a brookie.  As I brought the fish to net, I realized it was a brown!  Browns are somewhat of a unicorn at this spot, and this was most likely a wild fish.  Hat trick for the day completed 8)  I didn't get much of a pic of its tail, but you can see a bit of the reddish color  that confused my initial species I.D.





On to August......need rain big time!  I'm also expecting to become Grandpa Jim.  Break out the Snoopy pole :laugh:

JakeBlood:
Nice post, love the photos. I have been looking for some time to buy a little plot of land up there bordering a stream, brook or river... something just big enough to throw a camp of some sort on it.. bus,RV, whatever.... until I can build something permanant. I have found several, but none that were exactly right... looks like you got a nice little spot...

Jim C.:
Thanks.  I like your idea.  I have the same thoughts.  Right now, I drive 1.5 hours to get to the real good water/God's Country.


--- Quote from: JakeBlood on Jul 31, 2022, 04:54 PM ---Nice post, love the photos. I have been looking for some time to buy a little plot of land up there bordering a stream, brook or river... something just big enough to throw a camp of some sort on it.. bus,RV, whatever.... until I can build something permanant. I have found several, but none that were exactly right... looks like you got a nice little spot...

--- End quote ---

zwiggles:
Wonderful report per usual! Do you have any idea what the flower/plant in the fourth pic was?

Jim C.:
Thanks.

Not 100% sure on the plant ID, but I believe it's a Canada Lily.



--- Quote from: zwiggles on Aug 01, 2022, 06:44 PM ---Wonderful report per usual! Do you have any idea what the flower/plant in the fourth pic was?

--- End quote ---

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