A few hours at Blue Gum Grove

I don't get to fish as often as I like to these days with work commitments and family matters to take care of. I have only been on my favorite streams twice this season compared to going every weekend last year. I did manage to sneak out for a few hours this morning and headed down to Blue Gum Grove as it is only a few minutes from my house.

Our summer has arrived and I was a bit worried that the warm water would have affected the fish already, but I was quite surprised to land a few fish. All of them were in excellent condition and was still fighting strong despite the warmer water.

The first hour was a bit slow with one Brown and one rainbow coming out to a olive woolly bugger. Shortly after I started to see some head and tail rises and tied on a tiny flashback nymph and got another few good fish. I also missed a few and got smashed up on my 6x tippet a few times.

All in all it really was a fun morning out.

These brown were about 20cm long when we stocked them about 5 months back. I saw this guy leaping clear out the water  after a dragon fly, and he smashed my woolly bugger when I put it in front of him.

A saw this rainbow cruising and placed a size 18 flashback nymph in front of him. As soon as I gave the nymph a twitch he turned and took the nymph as if it was the real thing.

Getting that bend in your rod is what its all about.

FROM THE TYING BENCH

WOOLLY BUGGER

There probably is not much that can be said about the Wooly Bugger that havn't been said before. Love it or hate it, it should be in everyone's fly box as it is a proven fish catcher from Trout, Bass, Bluegills, Carp, etc.

From What I can gather a Pennsylvania fly tier, Russell Blessing tied the first "Buggers". He added a marabou tail to a woolly worm fly, to help suggest a swimming movement as the fly was retrieved in the water.The Wooly worm is very old and was already mentioned in Izaak Walton 1653 book "The Compleat Angler". The original Woolly Bugger was tied to imitate  the Dobsonfly Lava.

Woolly Buggers suggest lots of different trout food: Dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, leeches, baitfish, or just something that might be alive and edible. 

To fish the Whoolly Bugger you can use a countdown and retrieve or slow retrieve. Vary the retrieve until you find what works best at the moment, slow and steady, fast, strip and pause, or what ever works for the fish on the day.

Below is my favorite variation. 

 HOOK: Streamer

TAIL: Olive Marabou

FLASH: Crystal flash

BODY: Seals fur dubbing

HACKLE: Olive

BEAD: Brass

A new bug is born

With the start of the river season still a month away I decided to give Blue Gum Grove another try today. It was mainly to give my new Barrio Fly line a test and I can tell you for the price of these lines I am suitably impressed.

While bobbing around on my float tube I noticed the below little bug popping to the surface. Unfortunately I just had my little point and shoot camera with me and sitting on a float tube taking macro pictures is no easy task so apologies for the poor pics.

A few seconds later he started to make his appearance.

Next thing you know the wings came out, and at this point I was praying for a Rainbow Trout to come and get him.

And in a matter of just a few seconds a new bug was born....

You would be excused if you though that just witnessing this that I would off course find a suitably imitating pattern in my fly box to tie on, but at the end of the day the good old Olive Woolly Bugger did the trick just as well.