What a morning! Since before sunrise, I’d been standing in the cold water of the Sipsey Fork catching one rainbow trout after another. The fish were taking my size 12 Copper Juan nymph as though they were starving. Thus, there had been no reason to change flies. It was truly a subsurface situation. I had not seen a single natural fly emerge from the stream and there had been no surface activity whatsoever. No need for the dry fly today! Then, a single trout began rising steadily a few yards downstream. Fish tend to be like people. There is at least one in every crowd that refuses to conform and apparently this fish was the nonconformist in that section of the river. Not another trout was rising and I could not see what the loner was feeding on. So I had no idea how to match whatever he was taking so gluttonously.
After thinking a moment, I pulled a box of dry flies from my vest, took out a size 14 mosquito, and knotted it to my leader. After all, there are usually always a few mosquitoes around, and so this pattern is often a good searching fly. I cast across the stream and let it drift over the trout. The fish rose vigorously, and I set the hook. The rainbow took off downstream and then just as quickly reversed its direction and sped back up river. I mean like a rocket! The trout came toward me so fast there was simply no way I could take up the slack. Then the fish shot past and suddenly was behind me. Changing course again, the rainbow headed back down river. However, instead of passing me on one side or the other, the trout plowed into my backside like a cruise missile, came off the hook, and was gone! My line and fly refused to move when I attempted a roll cast to get back to fishing. Reaching behind me, I discovered the hook was hung in my neoprene waders. Thankfully however it was not stuck deep enough to cause a leak. What a nonconformist though! I was supposed to catch the fish, not the other way around! I still can’t believe that trout’s audacity. Nor can I believe the things that sometimes happen on the Sipsey!
The river is Alabama’s only year round trout fishery. Fortunately, that section of the stream from the Lewis Smith dam down to highway 69 is public water. The river is thus open to anyone, and to any type of trout fishing. Anglers fly fish, spin fish or bait fish for the Sipsey’s abundant rainbows. A yearly Alabama license is required. The limit is five fish per day. However, a fisherman can continue to catch and release trout after he has five on his stringer or in his creel. The one thing he cannot do is to release a fish once retained to replace it with a bigger trout. Since Smith dam was built to generate electricity, there is no natural reproduction of trout in the stream. The huge volume of water released when the generators are operating makes that impossible. However, frequent stockings guarantee trout will be present anytime a fisherman can get there. I have done well on the Sipsey every month of the year. This great trout habitat is created, of course, by the cold water that flows from the depths of Lewis Smith Lake. In fact the water is so cold waders are an absolute necessity. Only in Alaska have I fished water that was colder.
The Sipsey’s one drawback is that it cannot be successfully fished when electricity is being generated. The fish do not bite well then, if at all, and the water becomes too deep and swift to wade. When the siren sounds indicating the generators have come on line, one has to get out of the river immediately. Occasionally, in an emergency, the generators come on without the alarm sounding. (This is perfectly legal in a critical situation.) Once when Bill Newman and I were fishing, we, with no warning at all, suddenly saw a wall of water rushing toward us. Thankfully, we managed to scramble out of the stream in time. So, alertness is imperative when fishing the Sipsey. Fortunately, a generation schedule is published each day, and can easily be accessed by a simple telephone call. Usually the power company adheres to the schedule. However, IT IS subject to change. I have driven the 200 miles from my home to the river, only to have the generators come on line shortly after my arrival. When that happens, there is nothing to do but leave, or wait and pray for the generations to shut down. Even then, it normally takes several hours for the river to become fishable again. Once turned on, however, generation usually continues for the remainder of the day.
There are exceptions though. One morning I began casting a black ant at my favorite spot on the river. The trout absolutely ate it up! I caught nine fish in only a few minutes. Then the water came on. The flow however was much less than usual when the generators are in operation. Nevertheless, I assumed my day on the Sipsey was over. I was aggravated to say the least. Then, to my surprise, the flow of water ceased after a very short while and the river returned to normal. I couldn’t believe it! Apparently they were stocking fish since water is also released during that procedure. I began fishing again with the Black Ant only to have it completely ignored. Eventually I found a fly the trout would take, and had one of my best days on the river.
All my early fishing on the Sipsey was done with dry flies I’d used with some degree of success in other places. However, I caught relatively few fish on the Sipsey with the dry fly. So, I decided to try the nymph. Predictably, I encountered a problem in doing so. I had no idea how to fish a nymph. Then I met Mike Key who has fished the Sipsey most of his life. We became close friends and he taught me the art of nymphing. With his guidance, I soon began to take good numbers of fish from the river, and eventually went almost entirely to nymphs of different sizes and colors. The effectiveness of the nymph can be understood by the fact that trout do the greater part of their feeding subsurface. Now I fish the dry fly only when natural flies are emerging from the water. However during grasshopper season, I often fish a Joe’s Hopper, a dry fly, but fish it wet as though it WAS a nymph. This technique can be highly productive in season, but usually draws a blank at other times.
Thankfully, the Sipsey was only some seventy miles away when I lived in Columbus, Mississippi. Consequently, I was able to get there fairly often. However, I continued to fish the river after retiring to my farm in French Camp. Regretfully, the added distance put the stream roughly two hundred miles away (By the best route) and made getting on the river more demanding and more expensive. Even so, the Sipsey remains my home trout stream.
Although I’ve had many happy outings on the river, the trip on which the rainbow hooked ME in the backside eventually turned out to be my most productive day ever on the Sipsey. I did well the entire morning, but as noon approached, the fish went on an incredible feeding frenzy. I caught trout almost as fast as I could cast my Copper Juan. In the end I caught and released a total of 54 fish. What a morning! At one o’clock I quit fishing, walked out to my Silverado, and began the long drive back home. No distance is too great to keep me off the Sipsey, My Sweet Home River in Alabama!
