# Annual winter Mad River trip



## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

A buddy and I have developed somewhat of an annual tradition: heading to the Mad between Christmas and New Years. It's an easy time to get away with no work and makes a mid week trip more do-able. We did see a few folks on the water, I think the warm weather brought folks out. We were there on Dec 26 and the temps were ridiculously nice, in the low 60's range. Conditions were not optimal for how we wanted to fish, chucking streamers. The flow was low, slow, and the water was pretty clean. I fished sculpin patterns most of the day, small ones in a size 6. Short strikes from what I assume were small fish were common. I resist the urge to stick a hook in the tail of the small sculpins because the better fish that aggressively attack them seem to take the fly plenty deep enough for the front hook. I'd rather miss the dinks than kill a good fish with a super deep hook. I stuck a couple of fish, one being the prettiest fish I have ever caught on the Mad. We also stumbled onto a super fresh shed antler that, due to where it was found and the blood on the base, had to have been dropped the night before. 




























I fished this olive sculpin most of the day. I beat the crap out of this bug. There was no question I had the fly on the bottom most of the day, my powder painted head took a beating.


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## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

Nice report and fish, cool find on the shed also.
Glad to see your back on the water !
Good luck and Good Fishing !


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