2/24/12 East Branch Croton

Water is cold and a bit higher than Tuesday morning. TONS of fishermen out today. Counted over a dozen. Met Rich out there, Good to see ya bud.  But the main story of today is that it was SLOW.  No one was catching anything!  I spoke to 12 or so other fisherman, and besides the Perch that I caught early in the day, there was only one other fish caught and that was also a perch.  Dozen fishermen skunked...  We'll I wasn't leaving without a trout, and i was REALLY tired and wanted to leave.. lol... so after being at the bridge at 6am, 2 miles down the road at 11am, back to the bridge at 1pm, back and forth to Phoebes 3x (AND I NEVER GOT TO FISH IT!!!) I was just flat out beat... but I went to the tub one more time to see what was going on...  Same thing, 3 or 4 fish feeding, wont take a blessed thing. Tied on a white bugger, got 2 followers but no hit. 

I'm not experienced enough for situations like this, but perhaps that worked in my favor.  Only a few people have given me advice on fly fishing - One of which is my good friend's Father.  He's the man when it comes to fly fishing. and through all the knots he's showed me, flies he's given me, and technique he's helped me out with, I remembered his one tangential piece of advice. "Well if you're going to fish the East Branch of the Croton, and the Beaverkill up in Roscoe, there is one thing you need to know... When nothing else is working, you tie on a god damn beetle, and cast that sucker nice and high so it PLOPS down into the water... Thats how you catch picky trout.  Here let me tie a few beetles for you now so you have them.

We'll I took out a home made beetle, cast out so the line went taught about 4 feet from the surface and let that sucker plop down in the fast water on the far side of the tub. The beetle quickly started to move down stream with the fast water and before I had time to think about mending or recasting.... BAM.  Slurped right off the top and immediately went into a frenzy.  This fish faught like a champ. He even went on two small runs because trying to hold him still was putting a LOT of pressure on my leader.  Hope the picture does it justice, cause he was a chubby bastard for sure.

You can even see the home made beetle in the background, very similar to some of the store bought ones that I've seen as he ads bug legs too them sometimes too.   I continued to cast the beetle and I got 2 more bites and had several chases.  Soon after I went home very satisfied even though I really had to put my work in for my one trout, but on my way out I spread the word to some of the fisherman still trying their best, that a beetle was getting a lot of attention on the east side of the bridge.

Here is the perch i caught.. 5 inches, maybe...