After arriving at the Tuolumne around 7:15am, I suited up and walked the path for approximately 3/4 mile to find a spot that looked good to enter the river. I strongly urge everyone to use barbless hooks whenever you go fishing, however here, it is mandatory. This is a wild trout section of the river and you must also release all fish, which is something else I urge everyone to do wherever you go.
After wading out into the river, my first thought was, "Where are all the fish?" I didn't see any. Normally, I can spot them pretty quickly, but I didn't see a one. I'm sure they were there, it was just odd not seeing anything. To make it worse, I got absolutely ZERO bites, let alone a fish caught. I stayed for approximately three hours trying every fishy spot I could find. I wandered approximately 1/2 to 3/4 miles upstream in my attempt. Wet flies, nymphs, streamers, you named it, were tried with no results. I fished deep pools, shallow riffles, every fishy pocket I came across. Nothing.
Cherry Creek
I wandered back to my car feeling defeated. After a sandwich, I decided it was time to move on. After going further down Cherry Lake Road I came upon Cherry Creek. I had never been here before, so I first checked out the section downstream of the power station. The water was CRANKING! I don't know what the flow was, but it was deep and fast. Not something I felt like getting into since I enjoy wading. I was really surprised by the volume of water and wasn't about to get in.
Back in my car, I drove upstream to the Cherry Creek Rd bridge over Cherry Creek. I got out and looked. Didn't see any fish, but what can you expect, the bridge is probably 100 feet over the water. I snaked my way down the dirt trail that was rather steep and unstable -- eventually finding the water with a decent but very manageable flow. Again, I didn't see any fish. I knew they had to be in there, so I walked upstream and started fishing anything that looked like it could hold trout.
I found this area with rushing water dumping into a deep pool with large boulders underneath. There were fish in here, I could finally see them. They had no interest in anything I presented. I tried all sorts of sizes and colors of wet flies. Finally, in desperation, I threw a black wolly bugger and suddenly they were on the chase. This ended up being key and I realized that the color of the day was BLACK!
The bugger was too big, so I downsized to a size 12 Black Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear that had a gold bead head. I dead drifted the thing to about a depth of 3-4 feet. I scrambled around and used a combination of high sticking or just short up and across casts without any indicators. I caught a few 10 inchers in that pool. I wiggled my way around and stood at the head of the pool right over the plunging water and high sticked that nymph down there. After some drifting, I played it in and out of boulders and fishy areas. A few were caught that way too.
After the fishing slowed down, I moved on and did a variety of casts in different places. Shallow water, deep pools, whatever looked good. My black hares ear was getting gnarled from the fish taking it so often. I only had one, so I looked for other black flies. Next was a darkish Prince Nymph size 14. I caught 1 or 2 on that. But it seemed slow, I'm convinced it was because there was too much white on it.
I moved to a dark (almost black) Adams Wet Fly and used dead drifting and swinging methods to catch more fish. It produced well. Finally, after a pit stop at the car to refuel on liquid and food, I made one last trip to the downstream side of the bridge. I decided to put together a 3 fly rig together. The anchor was that beat up black hares ear (I dont normally use a nymph in a 3-rig, but since it was working earlier I thought it was a good idea), the middle fly was that dark Adams wet fly. The top fly was a light cahill dry (it was late in the day and some surface activity was starting up). All 3 flies were getting bites. However, the middle fly (adams) caught all the fish.
All in all, this was one of my most productive days of fishing -- ever. Even with that stinker of a morning on the Tuolumne, I did nicely on Cherry Creek. These fish were hungry. The largest fish were 15-17 inches. Besides those two, most of them were in the 9-11 inch area. With a few really small (5 inch) guys thrown in.
Fish count: More than 22 (lost count)
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