Fishing Report: Mossy Creek 7-9

It's been a while since we've last posted.  Fortunately it hasn't been because we're not fishing.  We just have been too exhausted after trips to put up anything.  Hopefully we'll be able to make relevant posts now despite being two or three weeks late.

I got today off from my internal medicine rotation because I'll be on call tomorrow effectively ruining my weekend.  Since the last time we reported on Mossy, Kyle went back and actually caught another huge brown.  Ridiculous.  I'm pretty sure he's using dynamite.  Because I was not in attendance for his successful trip, I had to make yet another trip in search of big browns.

To make it for the morning trico hatch, I got to the fog laden river around 5:30 and found fish sipping flies off the surface all over the place.  It was obvious that they recently restocked the river because there was a swarm of something like fifty 6-10 inch fish in the pool just below the bridge.  Water levels were low but manageable and a lot of the mud that was present last time I was there was no longer an issue.  Essentially, it was a perfect day to fish.

I had a bunch of early misses that initially frustrated me as well as one hook up of a big guy on a hopper pattern that happened by accident while I was trying to untangle some line.  By the time I realized I had a fish on, he had already made an epic leap that dislodged the hook.  I'm kind of glad though; I would have been pretty disappointed about having my first huge brown caught by accident.

Starting at around 8:00, the stocked trout began to feed consistently on something small on the surface.  I tried some trico spinners with no luck but found that a tiny, size 16, parachute adams seemed to draw plenty of hits.  I was impressed by their eating habits.  Usually these stocked fish snub their noses at anything that doesn't look like a pellet.

Eventually I hooked my first decently large brown.  He had definitely been there a while and put up and awesome but muddy fight.  By the time I had him in hand, I was literally covered in mud.  But it was worth it.  He took to a tiny parachute adams down underneath the lower bridge in a pool surrounded by stocked trout.

Then I found the money spot.  I can't divulge where it is for fear of others taking to it and catching all the browns.  But I can say that it's freaking awesome.  I spent my final hour there honing my skills with a pheasant tail nymph pulling in fish after fish.  In the end I think I pulled in about 20-30 fish (and I tried to document a decent number of them just so Rich and Kyle would know I wasn't lying when I told them).

On a side note, I met another fisherman out there today who was there for the first time.  Got to talking to him and found out he was about fed up with the river considering he had had no luck and was tired of getting tangled up in the brush.  I gave him a kreelex and promised him it'd get results.  Sure enough, about 30 minutes later, he pulled in a decent size fish.  Not bad for his first day on the river having only just started fly fishing about a year ago.  The kreelex showed off how awesome it is yet again.