Current River 7/9/2011

Access:  Baptist

Time Fished:  7:00 AM-3:00 PM

Weather:   Low 90's and sunny, morning fog

Flow:  115 cfs

Water:  Normal clarity

After spending way too much time fishing for bass and bluegill I finally got to go do battle with the trout......and the canoe hatch.  Speaking of hatches, the tricos  were hatching pretty strong in the morning although I didn't see any risers.  This might have been partly due to the layer of fog on the water hiding them but the trout do seem to ignore this hatch sometimes.  I actually considered the fog to be a bit of a blessing since it helped hide me from the fish's view.  I started out how I generally do at Baptist by Czech-nymphing the long run after the parking lot.  I generally do this more or less half sight and half feel but I couldn't see my sighter through the fog so it was all feel today.  I don't know if they were just really bite happy or I was "in the zone" but it went very well.  I caught quite a few rainbows, a few little wild ones, but no brownies at that point.  

By the time I got to the split the fog was starting to lift and the canoe hatch was on full blast, so it was time to sit on the bank and remember why I usually come down on weekdays.  None of them were too exciting, just a lot of "How's the fishing?".  Although one group seemed dead set to run into every piece of debris in the river and a little kid wanted to know if I was a "hillbilly".  Apparently his parents had warned him to watch out for hillbillies on the river.

I continued to catch nothing but rainbows all the way to the S-bend.  A few were nice including one fatty I caught at the split hole.  I hooked it on the right side and ended up landing the fish on the other side of the split.  At the bend I decided to switch up from the Czech set up to a frenchy leader.  At the beginning of the day I was catching almost everything on my anchor (a #8 Polish nymph) but as the sun kept rising I had more and more fish wanting the smaller flies I had as dropper.  The French set up is great for these smaller flies.  I used a #12 tungsten beaded hare's ear (tied on a jig hook) as my point fly for the rest of the day.  I'm really starting to like these jig nymphs since they don't get hung up on the bottom as easily.  I ran various smaller nymphs as my dropper.  Fishing stayed pretty consistent the rest of the day.  I'd wade a leader's length down, work the water up and across towards the bank and then wade another leader down.  Eventually, I finally got into a few browns.  None of the browns were of very good size but I did catch some nice rainbows.

There were a few memorable moments.  One was what could of been my first ever double.  I briefly had one on each fly.  I realized this a couple seconds before the one busted off my dropper.  There was one other fish that I can't get out of my head;  it got away of course.  I was working an undercut when my sighter just barely twitched.  I set the hook into something big.  After putting all the pressure my 4wt and 5X tippet could handle I finally got it close enough to see.  HUGE BROWN!  It definitely would of been my personal best.  Once it saw me the fish decide to get the hell out of there.  It took off downstream while I frantically tried to stop it and  about the time I started to see backing on my reel there was nothing at the end of my line.  I'm not  going to say where I hooked it but rest assured I'm going to hammer that spot from now on.

I got almost all the way to Ashley Creek before I decided to head back up.  I thought more about the ice cold cooler waiting for my at the parking lot than fishing but I still caught a few on my way back.  It was easily my best day as far a numbers go this year.  The canoe armada was pretty big but luckily they almost all came at about the same time.  The afternoon lock jaw wasn't that bad either.  It just required a change in tactics and some smaller more drab flies.  All in all it was a great day.

Farm Pond Largemouths

For Father's Day me and Dad fished a lake his boss owns. Up until five years ago this was a Christmas tree farm. Ever since they replaced the trees with wheat I've noticed the fishing has went way downhill. There's still plenty of fish but lunkers are few and far between these days. I'd say the 14 pounder I caught in high school will stay my record for this lake. Almost everyone allowed to fish the lake goes for catfish so bass are pretty gullible. Also, I'm reasonably sure I'm the only person to ever fly fish here. Catching them here is pretty straight forward. You either fish the weed bed in the one end and lose a few flies or fish the deeper corner which is full of sunken Christmas trees and lose tons of flies. Recent rain rose the lake up putting a good foot of water between the surface and cover. I fished the weedy corner mostly with a deer hair diver. The trick was twitching it under and letting it sit and wait for a bass to fly out of the weeds after it. I'd catch one about every third cast, only a couple of them were decent size. The catfishing did't go as well for Dad but we did get enough for dinner.

Dad

Dad waiting for the catfish to bite

Time to head home

Current River Fishing Report 05/17/2011

River:  Current

Access Fished:  Baptist

Time Fished:  7AM-3PM

Weather:  Sunny and 70

Water:  Up and off color

Flow:150cfs

Fished the Current yesterday to celebrate my birthday and to see how the flood effected the river.  I caught quite a few including a nice brown around 17 inches all by either Czech-nymphing while going downstream or French-nymphing on my way back up.  Interestingly every brown I caught took a #16 biot nymph which I somehow managed to not lose the entire day.  The rainbows mostly took my anchors which I lost a lot of to the stream bottom.  For anchors I was using either a jig hook cased caddis I tie, woven polish nymphs or a rubber leg stone with a tungsten bead and a half ton of lead, depending on the water.  It's changed quite a bit, so here's a hole by hole of what I noticed.

Parking Lot

This is about the only place I didn't get pictures so you'll have to take my word for it.  The first thing I noticed is the little rock dam at the edge of the hole was gone resulting in a far less sudden change to the fast run past here. Most of the beach is gone making the hole wider.  The bend pool looked a lot deeper but I couldn't be 100% sure.
The long run after the parking lot seemed pretty much the same.  There's few fallen trees but nothing in the way.  It may have been moving a little slower than it used to if anything.  It fished great and I picked up a fish every ten yards or so.

First Deep Hole

Coming into the first of the deeper holes has changed.  Its still shallow coming in but it splits a lot better than it used to.  I Czech nymphed the chutes on both sides of the island picking up a fish on each side.  Best of all you no longer have to bushwhack or hug the bank to get through here anymore.  The tree on the bank is gone altogether.   The actual pool is still nice and deep and stays fairly deep along the far bank going into the next hole.

Second Deep Hole

   This spot was DEEP.  I pretty much had to stay on the bank.  The problem was it stayed deep till about where the shortcut trail comes in(by the old tire).  I think I could of went by staying close to the bank but the stream bed was unstable and there was  debris in the way so I decided it was lunch time.

Shortcut Trail

After lunch I took the shortcut down river.  The run where the trail comes out was about waist deep and moving fairly swift.  I caught a couple of rainbows out of here and moved on after quickly getting tired of wading waist deep in quick water.

S-Bend

Coming into the S-bend was shallow and a lot easier to wade in than before.  The bend starts out the same with the deep water on the outside.  It doesn't effect fishing but the sand bar looked like someone took an eraser to it; not so much as a leaf of grass growing.

The outside bank got pushed out a little the whole way around.  After about the middle of the bend there's a lot of down timber on the far bank.  The leaves by the bank are also finally gone. 

 The end of the bend is the biggest change.  There's all kinds of dead fall blocking where I used to cross and it looked deeper so I had to plot a new route.  Luckily going into the left turn isn't like it used to be.  I actually waded right down the middle never going past knee deep.

The above picture was taken in the middle of the turn and you can see how shallow it is in the corner.  From here to the horseshoe bend it stays fairly deep and steady.  This section should be good for some nice long drifts.  I can see people really cleaning up indicator fishing it. 

Horseshoe Bend

Horseshoe bend/ big bend/ whatever you want to call it changed a lot.  I couldn't see anywhere to cross easily so my plans of fishing to Ashley creek went out the window.  I do think that once the river drops and the stream bed  isn't as shifty you should be able to cross right through the bend.  There's a ton of debris in the water here.  I can't wait to hook into something nice here and try to keep it out of the timber.

The future resting place of thousands of flies.

You can see how the outside bank got pushed out.  The outside of the bend is now fairly shallow making it a good spot to wade when fishing the middle of the bend.  The inside of the bend also looked shallow so assuming we don't get a bunch more rain I think this will be the spot to cross.  

I wish I could of went further but from what I could see the next section looked like it could be interesting.  I you look closely you'll notice a tree spanning the river right after the bend.  I'm surprised they didn't clear it but it's plenty high so canoes  could go right under it.

Overall the fishing was pretty good.  They were hugging the bottom so nymphing worked good.  I wish I could of done some streamer fishing but I left my box of them on my tying desk.   It was kind of tricky getting around at times but by the end of the summer we should have it figured out.  If you do go down soon bring a wading staff.  There were a couple of times I would of traded a kidney for one.  The flood didn't make the river better or worse, just different.