Saw it coming

If you read the blog this week, the post about the big browns in the pond, the follow up post should have been easy to predict. It was for me. There I was, alone, AJ up in Edmonton. Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind, crystal clear water and cruising, feeding browns below my feet. I even said AJ & I would be going back to try to get it all on HD on Friday. As soon as I'd stated that, I could tell you what would happen. And it did. We went back to that pond yesterday. It was cloudy and windy. Sighting was tough. Video with that glare was pointless. I managed to sight the large male. He wasn't feeding. In the 3 days between visits he'd gone from taking nymphs and cruising the shoreline for 100m to patrolling 5m of shoreline, holding atop his nest. He now sports white scuff marks on his fins. The redd is quite impressive. Didn't so much as cast to him.
So, we decided that it would be a good time to go to another set of ponds a mile away on another tiny spring creek. We tromped through the bush and as we approached saw a school of 9 trout. Pretty cool stuff in a pond that we'd last been to in early spring 2 - 1/2 years ago. The water was murky with ice at that time. Today, gin clear. As we sat on the bank waiting for the fish to cycle the pond, we saw something I'd not seen before. There were 3 browns, 2 in the 13 or 14" range, and one FAT male in the 24" range. The interesting part was the other 6 fish were brookies, and they were all cruising together. It was obvious the big brown was on his game. He was pestering the smaller females, sidling up to them, patrolling the pool. He was likely looking for a place to happen and a fish to do it with, and wasn't interested in any food. I managed takes from 3 of the brookies but the browns were totally turned off. It was fascinating to watch. And now I have yet another pond with another big male brown to visit next year. :)

On other notes, the mountain rivers remain murky thanks to runoff from the snow. Other local waters are in good shape but the browns are obviously getting into the spawn mode now. Area lakes are in great shape, with boatmen hatches and caddis the hilights. The weather is going to change Sunday afternoon - evening with more seasonable temperatures coming. There might be a bounce back day mid week, otherwise it's looking like low to maybe mid teens now. Fall is on its way. Turn over won't be too far away on local lakes.