Its all about temperature… And higher is better, because its spring after all. Last weekend I was exploring some Northern Latvian trout streams, with the aim not only to land some fish, but also to experiment with some new trout flies I have tied specially for this season. As you might remember last week was quite hot and dry, by this waking waters from a long winter sleep and definitely this was the time to get in a waders. Quite a lot of options at the moment one may suggest: chub, asp, sea trout and salmon kelts in Salaca, as well as some trout in our tiny rivers. And also pike season is around the corner! But this time for me it was all about the trout and tiny streams.During the snowy winter time I have tied some flies for the spring and besides all time classics (Woollys and Mudlers) I prepared some new stuff to experiment with. So, this was the moment these flies where waiting for.

Saturday still was quite hot, with the few clouds and a light wind breezes. Water temperature in the Pededze was around five degrees at the morning, that was promising, as well as the level. It is not wise to wake up early and start fishing as soon as possible, because water temperature at he morning is low and it increase during the day time hopefully will boost the trouts activity. This is opposite to what you can expect in the summer, when its too hot during the day time.

I started to fish in the Pededze and already in the first corner my bright colored wooly produced some nice fish that escaped after few moves. Not too bad for the beginning! I moved on downstream, but without any success in following hour… Hm, there should be something wrong! And it not the fly, or tactics either – I have changed speeds and angles of the swing as, but with out any success. May be water in the Pededze still was little to cold for high fishing and nasty takes. Virgulica, a small tributary definitely was a bit warmer, because it is smaller and during the hot days warms up faster.

Virgulīca is like an alpine creek – only 2 to 5 meters in width it is fast and rocky with bushy banks and lot of sheltering lies for trout. Already in the first spot descent fish attacked my bugger but with out any success. I moved on a little and had another take – this time successful! Nice, average size char was fighting the current with my fly in its mouth. Then another one and after a while Golden trout. F..k, what is this, some one may wonder. Yep, there is hatchery around the corner, so all these beauties has escaped some while ago I suppose. More surprisingly this spot produced another fish during the next minutes, so apparently it was an evidence that trout is seeking for the warmer water, and has entered the Virgulica recently. I reached first pool upstream from Pededze, that definitely was first stopping point for the entering fish. Nice cast under the bush, my fly swigged deep in a black water, and…  Yes – h e a v y   s l o w l y take! Its all about the scale in the small streams. It is nothing special to land a kilo + fish in big river or in the lake, but to see such a creature in small stream is something special. This time it was nice rainbow mail with the ugly sight and behavior – truly nice fish. But, historically, these ones where hatchery breaded, and as a fishermen I am always after wild ones. So, brownies was the name of the game this time! I changed from ugly colored buggers to my newly designed flies. Under the overhanging bush, deep in the dark current, where all types of food are passing by, is the spot that is just what decent trout is looking for. First I checked lie in the front of the big boulder, but without any success.

At the evening water temperature reached 8.1 degrees , in comparison to 6 degrees at the morning. Amazing! Next morning clouds covered the sky and strong northern winds brought colder weather here! Unfortunately water was colder too – 6 degrees during the day time, with out any significant increase! Fishing was of coarse not so good as day before, but, surprisingly, brownies was less effected by the temperature than others – I caught 5 browns and only two chars, without seeing any bow or something else. Environmental hardiness of these brownies sometimes is just unbeatable!

I ll be back with sea report after a while!

Greetings.

Tags: Brown trout, creek, Rainbow

This entry was posted on Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 14:44 and is filed under Fly fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.