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SOHO Marathon

Started by troutphisher, April 28, 2009, 11:38:57 AM

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troutphisher

I fished the SOHO yesterday with Glassfisher. We had planned on fishing it Saturday, but I had chores to finish before I could earn another fun pass. Glass decided to take a day off work, and we planned to fish Monday instead. We met up at 6:30 near Asheville and headed to the river. We arrived at a spot we both like to fish, good riffles, deep runs and wide open spaces to cast. We rigged up with our favorite patterns and were on the water a little before 8:00am. Glass was first to get into a fish, and hooked into a big rainbow, the fought him down river about 60 yards, before he got the net under it. It was a beautifully colored male, with bright orange streaks under the gill plates.

I moved down and fished a riffle section, and had some nice rainbows on a red zebra midge size 18, with a bwo emerger size 18 dropped off. I could see some sporadic bwos coming off, but not very many rises. The wind picked up at times and the breeze blew the fly's off the water surface quickly. I decided to change the bottom fly and put on a size 18 ptn. That was the ticket, and I started pulling in some nice fish. The water was high and slightly stained when we arrive, but the schedule did not have a release according web site.
The water started to clear up around noon, and turned crystal clear for the remainder of the afternoon.

We decided to try another spot, and took a break from the heat. It was 87 degs and the sun beat down on us. Glass had brought some home brew he wanted to share, and we cracked the caps on a bottle.
It was a deep amber color, with a thick head. The aroma had a hint of apricot and citrus. It was very well rounded with flavor and finished with light grapefruit flavor, and awesome beer for a hot sunny day!
It was a very good beer, in fact so good, I talked Glass into cracking the cap on the second bottle.
We finished our beer, and headed to another section we like to fish.

Near the tail end of the riffles I saw suckers lined up and breaking the surface, they were spawning in full force, and there were a few rainbows laying in wait for eggs. I tired to cast the fly up stream of them and drift down into the pod, but a sucker took the PTN and raced down stream before it came unbuttoned. I had had enough of this and moved down river another 200 yards to better water.

The water was very low during the later afternoon, and the fishing was tough, with the clear conditions, but we manged a few nice browns and bows.

We decided to move to another spot further down river to finish off the day. Glass headed to the riffles section while I fished a slow deep run. We were into fish and had a lot of double hook ups.
Later in the evening, the sulphur has was on and the fish started rising. Glass and I both fished a slow section and cast drys to rising fish. It seamed like the fish keyed on the emergers rather then the adults, but they were taking fully winged sulphers too. Glass hooked into nice brown that made his hardy reel scream.
Within minutes I had a nice rainbow take the emerger pattern and made several hard runs. We fished this section until it was too dark to see the fly's around 8:30pm.

We decided to head back to my car, and finish off the last of the beers. Glass had a beer he wanted to share called " Holy Sheet"! it was another amber colored brew, with a pleasing taste, not as good as his home brew, but very good none the less. It was a potent beer @10%...heheheheh

We chased that down with an Amstel light, and called it a day.
We fished twelve hours, it was our first Marathon day of 2009, and the days only get longer from here.

Here are a few pic's of the day.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Woolly Bugger

you suck, both of youz guyz !
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

benflyfishn

You guys are killing me. I have yet to fish the SoHo this year!! o-o Oh, yeah BIG Suckage!

How did you do Sunday?
What happens on the stream, stays there..........

troutphisher

Ben,
Sorry I didn't recognize you guys, when I walked passed, I did hear some one say hi Karl, but when I turned to look, you guys were already walking away. I was heading to the tail run, where Tom was fishing, he was the older gentlemen in the green vest and hip "old school" hip waders. I got to the water around 2:00pm to try and catch the march brown hatch. I fished nymphs for the first hour, then went dry for the rest of the day. I managed several nice fish on drys, one big rainbow took a size 18 grannom caddis, and put up a great fight. Then the highlight of the day was a big brown around 23" that too a size 22 midge emerger dry. It sipped the fly, then bolted down stream to the deep pools, this fish fought hard, and made the reel scream.
Tom and I like to fish the midge hatch just before dusk.

I didn't get a good picture of the brown, it fought hard and I wanted to keep in the water, but you get an idea of it's size from the quick pic I did manage.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Woolly Bugger

much suckage there too TP!
ex - I'm not going to live with you through one more fishing season!
me -There's a season?

Pastor explains icons to my son: you know like the fish symbol on the back of cars.
My son: My dad has two fish on his car and they're both trout!

troutphisher

This is the big brown under water shot, it still has a small kype
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

WRector

The color on those SoHo browns is gorgeous.  Especially comparing them to the ones caught in parts unknown.  ;)  And oh yeah, You suck just a little!  0--0
There's a big difference between a dry fly dancing through
a riffle and a weighted fur ball dragging on the bottom.

benflyfishn

Sweet brown!!  ;hb Yeah, you looked like you were on a mission to get to a spot..... If my ride was not leaving so early I would have harassed you some, next time. >:D I tried a couple emergers, but not much luck. Still learning to fish and tie them.... Never could get dialed in. Caught a couple nice browns, but on different patterns all day....
What happens on the stream, stays there..........

Fire-Fly

Nice couple of days TP, did you see any sulphurs hatching?