HARTSEL — On a so-so day on Spinney Mountain Reservoir, with the sun playing peekaboo through passing strips of clouds, the wind at one time or another blowing from every point of the compass and the trout showing considerable indifference to the contents of a go-to fly box, one last cast seemed in order.
A tandem of nymphs, this time a bead-head Prince for weight with an all-purpose Hare’s Ear behind it, lit onto the water and slowly began their descent. A bright-yellow strike indicator bobbed up and down in the waves, as it had, undisturbed, much of the afternoon.
Thoughts began to wander. Eyes drifted from the indicator to the passing scene. A raft of ducks, perhaps brought down from the mountains by the same storm that had dusted higher peaks with snow, dotted a small, shallow cove. A lone sandhill crane waded near the sandy shore.
A solid tug all but pulled fly line from fingers. On reflex, the rod was yanked back . . . The fish was gone. The leader had snapped under the sudden strain.
As so often happens, the final cast led to another, then another. A pod of rainbow trout, most likely of the Hofer strain, stocked into the reservoir as much for their growth potential as their resistance to whirling disease, remained in the vicinity. They produced a welcome flurry of activity to cap the day, underscoring the relative unpredictability of October fishing on Spinney Mountain, Antero, Elevenmile and numerous other reservoirs.
With the nighttime temperature already dipping into the 20s, the water is gradually cooling. The primary hatches of summer and early fall pretty much have run their course. Though midges and possibly even some errant Callibaetis mayflies continue to emerge, and some spurts of good activity still are possible, they’re less predictable than earlier in the year.
Fish continue to feed, however. As the traditional sayings go, they’re especially hungry in the fall, bulking up for the approaching winter, looking for a bigger mouthful.
Whether based on reality or mainly because of the food supply readily accessible to opportunistic fish, such observations have considerable merit. The forage base available to trout year-round in Spinney and many other waters includes crayfish, leeches and scuds.
For fly-fishermen, scud patterns, Woolly Buggers and other streamers designed to represent crayfish or smaller fish to the trout become more reliable than patterns designed to imitate the insects that hatched earlier. A two-fly rig with a leech pattern or Slump Buster trailed by a scud can be particularly effective in October. A sink-tip or fully sinking line may be useful in presenting the flies at the proper depth.
For spin-casting fishermen, crayfish-imitating tube jigs and other soft-plastic lures, along with standard jigs and diving crankbaits, become especially effective in the fall.
Whatever the technique, the potential rewards of October fishing are significant.
Though fewer fish might be available than in the spring, they are larger from a full season of growth. They tend to be in shallow water, before moving deeper as the ice-up approaches.
Rainbow trout tend to cruise along the shoreline, often in small schools. They move in, they move out. The dam face and areas with similar rock-and-gravel structure are among the potential hot spots for finding the cruisers.
Brown trout tend to be in the upper end of the reservoir, whether moving toward the inlet to spawn or, battered and bruised, returning to the lake after their spawning run. Though Spinney’s brown-trout population may not be all it once was, the browns remain large and richly colored, especially at spawning time.
October can be a great time to be on the water, but inevitably the season is winding down. Spinney will be closed to boats after Oct. 31. Fishing from the shore and fin-propelled belly boats only will be possible until it closes for the season at freeze-up.
Like the weather, late-fall fishing is unpredictable. Fishermen looking for that final fling should be ready for anything.
