Giant Washbowl

Saturday, I headed to Giants Mountain and the Washbowl. This time, I decided to do the full hike before fishing. 4500 ft of elevation over 9 miles and 6.5 hrs was pretty good. I had to carry 2 backpacks, dropping my fishing pack with about 20 lbs of gear at the pond 800 ft up, before continuing the hiking until 1. The fishing was pretty good. I was being stupid for the first hour and trying a bunch of different tactics, streamers, nymphs, large hopper droppers, and nothing was working. Then, I switched to the same fly that was working last year at the same exact time, and big suprise, I started getting action. Another 30 minutes of fishing, I probably missed 5 fish on the dry fly. I realised that my dropper nymph was grtting in the way of the fish, and immediately after taking this off, I landed my first brookie. Until 4, there were a ton of fish rising, and I managed to land 5 total, all in the 8-10" range. The bite turned off like the flip of a switch. There were fish rising every 5 seconds, and it just stopped immediately. I fished for another hour with no luck. There was also a guy with a float tube there at the same time as me. I was pretty annoyed, not at him, but because my plan was also to use my paclraft to fish. Unfortunately, there was a hole in it from the last time I used it, and I spent 2 hours late friday night trying to find it, and I failed. The guy in the raft was catching more fish than me, and he said he caught a 13". He also said he was using a white crystal wooly bugger. I know I would've had a lot more success and probably would've caught bigger fish if I was also able to get out in the middle of the pond. My plan earlier in the week for Sunday was to go splake fishing. The weather for the day made me think twice, as I didn't feel like dragging my kayak 1.5 miles into the woods in 55° and rain, to potentially suffere and get skunked targeting a fish I know very little about. I then wanted to go streamer fishing for big browns, but because I stayed up so late trying to find the hole in my raft, I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep, and I knew that waking up early again would be brutal. I have a gut wrenching feeling I couldve gotten on some nice fish, because the conditions Sunday were just so perfect. I'm heading back to Maine next weekend, probably for 2.5 days of fishing. This time, I am going to attempt to catch an arctic char, and if I don't succeed the first Saturday, I might spend the weekend targeting them. I'm not able to go to the ponds that have trophy fish, which I am a bit dissapointed by, but any fish in general, especially if they had a bit of orange colo,r would be a great success.

Headed back to Giant's Wahsbowl today. The day started off pretty bad. My 5:30 alarm didnt go off, and I woke up at 9:30 instead. I then decided to take the ferry across which Google maps said would take 20 minutes off my drive. I then paid $12.50 for it, and it took me an extra 40 minutes before i was on the other side of the lake. I got to the trailhead at noon exactly, and although I wanted to head all the way up to the ridgeline, I decided there wasn't enough time and I would just go to the pond and fish. There were a bunch of fish rising, and it looked like there were midges and some 14 mayflies. I caught the beautiful 10 inch brook trout on my first cast. For the first 15 minutes, I was getting bit as soon as my fly hit the water, but I kept missing the hooksets. There were a few problems that quickly arose during the session. Most of the fish were rising just past where I was able to cast. The bottom of the lake was thick mud, so I couldn't wade out further out. I was also using my 6.5' 3 weight. Not only was it harder to cast it farther, but it also mean my flies kept getting caught on the tall grasses behind me. I bet if I had my 9' 5 wt, I would've been able to clear the grasses and get the extra distance I needed. There was also the problem of the wind. When the wind really picked up, I just couldn't cast. When there was a bit of wind, I would cast, but I also noticed no fish were rising. The combination of these three problems made the day tough. I caught ended off with 3 in 3 hours, which isn't too bad. I then headed down the mountain and across the street to chapel pond. There was a gravel sand bar that was completely dry, which meant casting was not a problem. However, the wind was constant, which meant I saw no fish come up for flies. I tried throwing a streamer but had no luck. Finally, I headed back towards home, but stopped at the headwaters of the bouquet river. I caught another 3 brook trout there, including my smallest one yet. The river, like all of the ones in the area, was very dry, and there were very few deep pools. However, I caught the fish that I did catch were in runs, where I had a boulder blocking my view of the run. The fall season has officially started, and the brook trout are not in the deepest parts of the lakes anymore. This is a good sign, because I have a trip to Maine planned in 2 weeks, where i hope to catch some Salmon, big brook trout, and a really awesome native species that I've been wanting to target for years. Hopefully these next two weeks will have some cooler weather and more rain!