Get It in The Water and They Will Come!
Last time the water was off for a while was Saturday about 10:00 p.m., and stayed off until 4:00 a.m. Sunday. This morning, lo and behold, the water was off. They turned it off at midnight and it is scheduled to stay off until 2:00 p.m. then ramp up to four and back off at 8:00 p.m. Not a clue what will happen tomorrow, but would not be surprised to see it off again.
Reports from the river this morning were "if you can get a fly in the water, you will catch a fish". Catching on almost everything, soft hackles, midges, wooly worms, wooly buggers, cracklebacks, scuds, and the list goes on.
Sunday, Carolyn had Lynn and David from here in Missouri out for half a day. Lynn was indoctrinated into the "Stripper Club". Fairly slow in the early part of the day on midges, so we changed over to the sinking leaders and started throwing the olive filoplume. Lynn is pretty new to fly fishing, but with a little time spent on her casting she was getting that filoplume right into the seams and stripping. She definitely got the hooking and bringing in fish figured out. David has been fly fishing for some time, so he took off with his sinking leader, some filoplumes, natural and golden variant sculpins and had a good time catching and missing…..a few, fish on these patterns. Stan had John and his son, Reed, also from Missouri, out for half a day. Reed is a nice young man and a pretty good fly fisher. He and his father had a very good day catching fish on the Big ruby with the size 18 ruby dropper and the size 18 purple (yep! purple), midge.
Monday Darrell took Vince and his grandson, Alec, from Illinois out for a short half day trip. Before the rain and thunder started threatening, they were catching fish on the Primrose & Pearl midge. Darrell was sorry to have to get off early, but did not want to take any chances being the high spot in the water holding lightening rods!
Tuesday, was a busy day. Stan and Jim had a group of guys from Florida out for half a day. Jim, with Art and Joe caught fish on the red midge, a black thorax midge and a size 12 bug eyed-bugger. One of the guys was new to fly fishing, so Jim did some casting and line work with him. Stan had Dan in his boat and they hooked fish, missed a few here and there, on the big ruby with the size 18 ruby dropper. Carolyn had a couple young gentlemen (both are in their 80s) out for the day. Bob is from Arkansas and his long-time friend, Jack, is from Illinois. Bob is just getting started in fly fishing. Love it! They, and especially Bob, had a very good day with the holographic green crackleback and the fl. orange bodied, light hackle crackleback.
Jim took Bill and his son, Doug from Ohio, out Wednesday. Water was going up and down with erratic regularity (how about that for description?!). Between ups and downs, they caught fish on the red and black midges and the bug-eyed bugger. Wednesday had lots of people complaining about the water levels and off and on catching…..life in a tailwater.