Merry Christmas,
I was out this weekend and the fish are feeding. The fishing on the river is putting up good numbers of fish in every size range. I fished multiple ways all with good results. I also believe you have to be versatile in your fly box after the water tops out. Every morning I would try to start at the top of a riffle. Throwing 7-9′ nympghing rig with normally two #4 split shots 14″above my worm/scud/egg, 18″trailing another worm/scud/egg. The best combo was a scud (orange) size 10-14 on top with a purple San Juan trailing. As the water rises you should work your way up the riffle as the fish are moving up to get the newly uncovered food. After the rise we moved onto calmer runs of water sometimes barely moving (bottom duck,upper 9 shore,8). Here midges were working well along with streamer patterns. With allot of the bottom growth washed away fishing the big patches of clodophora is ideal. Dead drifting is key, along with no taper from pulsa to first midge as well. I tie 5′ of 5x to my leader, were i put my square not is were i at attach my pinch on indicators leaving a tag so it has extra hold allowing it not to slid down with the icy conditions. Using tungsten headed midges allows us to run no split shots! I was using silver or gold heads with black or red zebra patterns with a size 16 on top and if the water was faster trailing it with a 16, if calmer we trailed with a size 18 16″-18″ down. The bite is suttle so ease down on your sets and you will hook more fish. Another drift in the slow water was dead drifting streamers. Same set up as the midges and most of the time no trailers but we did trail scuds and have a few takers. The best pattern was the simi seal leech with a red head no trailer. These areas are in the sun most of the day which is nice. Toward the end of the day we drifted banks that receive sun or still in it. We stripped streamers from the bank with the 250 gran sink tips. The fished were chasing the olive woolly bugger and hitting it on drop in between strips. The best tip when doing this is try to imagein the fly being 4-12″ from the bottom so you have to change your strips as the banks drop off. All of the runs we did were in slow water so we also drifted the midging rig out of the boat. The last drift I had a streamer leading and a midger drifting and had 4 double ups in under 50 yards of water. This stretch of water is hands down my favorite piece of water, if you know it have fun. The REDS are appearing in some of the common locations. I had a guy run three different glow bug patterns threw two reds and no luck. We put a purple worm on and caught both. Fish are getting ready to spawn and coloring up. I will be back out this week and keep you updated on the activity’s. Remember to dress warm and the Walk In is always open.
Kyle
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