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.
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.
