I headed capewards at 4 this morning w/ the goal of making a quick pass at Scortons to see if per chance, the gods were with me, and I could rendevous with one of those brown trout, sea-run or not. After that I had planned to head towards Cotuit, take a
leak in the narrows and then head over to the falmouth ponds.
The gods were with me. I never left Scortons.
I arrived at 5:30, low outrushing tide; frost on the marsh, ice on the banks and line guides. Picking my favorite pool I cast and shiverd till the sun rose about 6:30 and quickly warmed things. As one would expect, schoolies were all over the place, coo
perative,sea-bright, and feistier than a few months back. Also as one would expect, clousers were the fly of choice; dredged deep along the bottom.
As is conveniently the case in mass, the low tide on a full moon falls about 6.
By 7, Scortons was a series of pools and riffles, dead calm, no wind.
Sufficiently schoolied out; I was working my casts at the opposing banks, aiming for pockets, hoping for m first trout. No luck. There were two guys upstream from me, across a large creek, catchins choolie after schoolie. Just as I was about to pack it
in and head down to Cotuit one of them started shouting. he had just landed a brown trout on a clouser.
Hope springs eternal. So I stayed.
Dead low; no current, no flow, no wind.
A perfect ring appears on the pool upstream of me, no wheres near either my cast or backcast. A trout rise?
few minutes later, another rise; this one seen by the guys upstream. For the next hour, dead low, moon tide, no flow, 3-4 trout pretty much continually break in the pool I'm working and the one upstream.
I cast at the opposite banks, at the breaks, at the pool, at the sandbar. Nada.
trip fast, strip slow, doesn't matter. Cast in the pool at the striper spot and I get striper after striper; but thats not what I'm after.
My striper monocore line has been tangling on me all day due to the cold. After one almost perfect cast to a pocket under the far bank, I have a birdnest at the first guide. I take my time picking it out, there is no current, the clouse just sinks to th
e bottom.
When I untangle the line I start to strip in the line for another cast; its stuck on the bottom so I pull had. It comes free as I let off pressure; then strip again. The line takes off. Fast. It makes a roostertail as it slices around the pool.
This fish is swimming on the same plane, not hugging the bottom like a striper. At low tide, the pool is only 20 yards square, a run to the left; a run to the right, and there beside me, gold spots on its side, square tail, is a brown trout.
I slide it onto the shore and grasp it gently. Its my first trout on a fly; its also my first trout bigger than 12". Clearly one of the newly released brown trout, 14" long at a guess, a compact torpedo. Its still brown on top, but its sides and belly
have started to pick up a more silverly sheen, I assume from the salt water flushing in and out of the creek twice daily.
The release is far different than a striper release as it jets off on the same plane, unlike the striper crash dive on release.
I continued to fish the same pool, perhaps hooking another brown, a fish which acted like the one I caught,but since I never saw it, I cannot be sure. Fish continued to break well into the incoming tide, slacking off only when the water started rushing.
The guys upstream landed another brown on a wooly bugger.
At 11, I called it a day, figuring I could't top the morning.