Trip report, Spruce Creek

[castaway]

Okay, it may be out of the geographical area normally considered the Blue Ridge, but it is an interesting if controversial stream since most of it is private water.  I am not a great fan of private water, and go on this trip more because of my friends than for the fishing.  Still, the fishing is spectacular.  I have paid a lot more money to fly out west to catch fish like this, so I guess that makes this trip a bargain.  Not sure how many fish I caught over the three days, and I don't think I got anything over about 17 inches.  Last year I picked up a few over 20, but a good mess of fish is never a bad thing.  Biggest fish by the others came in at 23 inches.

First let me give you a rod report.  I got a new Temple Fork Finesse 8' 9" four piece five weight during a raffle last spring.  A few weeks ago I gave it a try on the Yellow Breeches and found it good for punching flies back under the branches where most of the fish are.  It worked well with the five weight line, and I put on a 6 weight which allowed me to punch a bit further on short casts with little line out.  However on Spruce, I grabbed the rod with the 6 wt line and found it didn't work well with the greater distances I needed on Spruce.  I was surprised, but one of my buddies who is the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to fly rods said he found he needed to underline a 4 wt Lefty's Signature rod from Temple Fork to make it cast well.  After a bunch of really crummy casts and hanging up in the overhanging branches, I went back and grabbed my tried and true Sage 486 LL and was happy as a clam for the rest of the trip.

The fish were mostly on terrestrials.  Beetles (specifically the Harry Steeves Firefly which I consider a beetle since it is way too fat to be a firefly) and inchworms worked best.  Didn't even try an ant since I was doing well enough with the other patterns.  Enough is, after all, what we are all looking for although we may have different definitions how it is comprised.

I have found one very interesting thing about inchworm patterns.  At least on Spruce, the pattern works great in one stretch of about 80 yards which is loaded with hemlocks overhanging the stream.  Everywhere else it was basically worthless.  There has to be something about the hemlocks, which doesn't bode well for our trout that love inchworms in Virginia where the hemlocks are fast disappearing.  The Rapidan, for example, has very few hemlocks left unless you count skeletons.

I also tried some traditional wet flies just for a lark.  Got one on a Partridge and Green before it started sinking, but couldn't interest those trout in it once it was underwater.  My efforts with a white marabou streamer were for naught too, and those have been top producers in that water in the past.  While there were some blue quills in the air (mollis), and some tricos, nothing seemed to be feeding on them, so I just stuck with my beetles.

Almost every fish was a brownie, although I did catch two rainbows.  Apparently the landowner stocked some of those palomino trout, goldfish which don't belong in any real trout stream.  I couldn't take the stretches with glowing fish seriously and left them for my colleagues.

The fish were a bit more picky than in some other years, but if you could get your fly well back under the overhanging brush they were pretty easy.  The casting was what was hardest.  Mostly I found a 5x tippet worked fine and the heavier tippet helped turn the beetle patterns over.  In the flats you needed 6x or you didn't catch fish.  Bright sun shining through tippet material probably is REAL visible for those fish.  Back under the shadows it didn't matter much.

Sorry, no photos.

[pelcrk]

What part of spruce did you fish?
I've fished the rod and gun club section a few times and it is incredible fishing.
steve