Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Swift - 10/18 to 10/23, What Crowds??
A lot has been said about the crowds on the Swift. Lots of fish and lots of fly fishers!!! Here's my experience over this past week.
Monday, October 18th found me stepping into the pipe section at 5pm. There was one other fisher down by the "tree" and that was it for the hour that I was there. I took 16 'bows mostly on a tiny creation that I worked up the night before.
Thursday, October 28th I scouted the same spot around 5:30pm. Only one fly fisher!!!
On both of these days the Y Pool parking lot was full.
Saturday (yesterday)found me sleeping until 7:30am (that's considered "sleeping in" for me), eating breakfast, doing a 40 minute hard walk, picking the last of the green tomatoes and then a full raking of the backyard. Then came lunch followed by a trip to the Swift.
The Y Pool lot had a dozen cars but the Pipe lot was almost empty at 2pm!!!! On a Saturday????? The lone car belonged to Marla Blair. You can make out the car on the extreme right of the photo. It was a temptation to stop right here and take advantage of the rare elbow room but I had been thinking of one stretch at Bondsville (above photo) so downstream I went.
I fished Bondsville for a a little less than 2 hours, caught two 'bows, and then went back to the Pipe. It's still a ghost town and now Marla is leaving. She said the place was empty when she got there at mid day and remained so. Very odd!!
I fished the pipe totally alone from 5 to 6pm and took 20 'bows on that same creation I used Monday. The fly was one of a two fly rig and it was the only thing they wanted. It worked in sizes 18 through 26. More on that latter.
I can't think of a reason why the Pipe would be as lonely as Bondsville on a Saturday. Maybe it was just a fluke. It may be a good bet to hit the Pipe in the LATE afternoon to avoid the "practice green" atmosphere that we usually see.
Posted by Millers River Flyfisher at 7:07 AM