Maxwell with Marvin

My brother Marvin and I decided to go fishing on Saturday. He had never fly fished and I was interested in taking him to a productive stream. The closest one to his home is Maxwell Creek. Although it is a very short stretch of water, it is quite close to Lake Ontario.

Maxwell was stocked last year with 5 inch fingerling rainbows. http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/23219.html . Normally I'll fish Maxwell in the winter when steelhead and browns come in to spawn. I was not sure how the summer months would fare with this well used creek.

We arrived soon after sun up and the water at the lower section was very still. A few slow breezes brought up the chill of the morning.

Not a good hatch of anything was happening.

So Marv and I practiced a few basic casting techniques. 

We moved upstream to try some faster water.  Marvin was using a hare's ear nymph with a little twist of gold on it. We were trying some pool action when I suggested reeling up the line and heading up stream once more. As his leader passed by my feet and into 3 inches of water it started splashing.

I yelled, "you got one!"

"There it is your first fish on a fly rod and it's a rainbow trout." My excitement was more than enough for the both of us. 

I don't think Marvin was impressed. It was a tad under 5 inches. None the less Marvin had not missed out on trout fishing of New York State. We took pictures and I explained the markings to him. We carefully released the salmonoid to fight another day.

More about markings on the National Wildlife Federation website…

http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/wildlife-library/amphibians-reptiles-and-fish/rainbow-trout-or-steelhead.aspx

Marvin was having great success hooking sunfish...

After de-barbing the hook, Marv caught a second one about the same size. We then moved upstream to a larger hole where Marvin learned to roll cast. This produced for him two small perch. We continued upstream to the major water fall, where we spent the remainder of the morning catching fingerlings, sunfish, small mouth bass and rock bass. 

Released until the season opens this coming Saturday.

Meanwhile I hooked this nice 12 inch small mouth on a black stone fly nymph.

We were ready to go home when

we found another nice spot to fish.

I said to Marvin, "Just one more cast and then we'll go", which of course led to another hour of fine panfish retrieval. We both worked the water as I tried to help Marvin with the "mending line" technique. He finally got it. 

I showed him how the float stays in the swirling pool as the fly line flips back into the current.

While we watched, the float pulled hard under the water.

"You got one!"  I shouted. "Pick Up… Pick up!" 

To my surprise Marvin reeled in a really large Rock Bass.

This was the completion of our day, knowing we were leaving more large fish in the fast moving water of Maxwell Creek.