Fishing the Oak Grove Fork Stream October

I decided to go and give the Oak Grove Fork Stream a try. I know the stream exceptionally well, and would be a guide if I didn’t display un-guidely behavior to fellow anglers in my party. Anyway, I hop in the car, and twenty minutes later I arrive at the fork, directly beneath the dam. We get out, put on our waders, and I tie on a fly for me and Alex. Right now both of us have a size 14 bead head pheasant tail with a strike indicator about two feet above it. I head down the gravel road leading to the river, ignoring the “no unauthorized access” sign, and heading down the river. Although Alex has a little obsession with wading, I prefer to stay out of the water as much as possible. I place casts near shore, until a particularly unusual cast sends it in the tangles of the world’s worst logjam. I make the mistake of walking right up to it in the hopes of freeing my fly. Let’s just say I nearly got sucked under to my certain death, but managed to brave the current with sheer force. I get on top of a log, and ahead is the nicest looking hole in the world. I make a twenty foot cast at its head, and my reel falls off just as a fish bites it and spits it out while I’m trying to fix my reel. I swear, and make several more casts, each with a bite but no hook up. Once I even have one on for a while, then it sheds the hook. I swear repeatedly. Seeing as the trout have no more of an interest in nymphs, I switch to a dry fly, an elk hair caddis that usually works well here.

 I hook up on my first cast. I manage to play the fish out of the hole into the strong current between me and the hole, and I almost lose it, when I lift the rod in the air with the little trout at the end. I realize about now Alex is fishing right next to me. It turns out being a Brook. It’s a nice looking fish, a bluish black with green, yellow, and red spots, and a gorgeous pair of pelvic fins. A quick photograph, and its released. We fish downstream, working through every boulder and plunge pool, with nothing. On our way back, we pass the hole and place one more cast in it. Another tug and I play a similarly sized fish. Alex says it’s another brookie, but I think differently. It ends up being a nice cutthroat, taken from the same hole as the brookie. I release the cutt back and head back to the car. There’s a whole day of fishing to be done. (Author’s note: the rest of the day downright sucked. Nothing. Not a bite, not a tap, not a rise, not a sign of molecular life, thought it might be important to mention that)