20" plus dry fly brown caught Thursday 4/23 by local guide Zak. Fair amount of fly fishermen in & out of the store Saturday, not much in the way of reports back.Tommy B. & brother Matt did pick up a few good ones yesterday when they floated the river. Riverton is 550cfs,
and the permanent C&R/TMA down closer to the store is 759cfs total
flow (209cfs coming in from the Still River). What does all this mean?
Anywhere from our store to the dam is fishable, albeit there is about 300cfs more than normal for this time of year. Best guess on MDC cutting flow back from dam is for Monday 4/27, I'd say there is about a 90% chance of them reducing the water release. After a few very successful outings, I took a zero after work last night. That's what happens when you start to get cocky! Haha. Water temp was 46.5 degrees, a little better than I expected. And this despite the state stocking the river multiple times over the past week, everywhere except the TMA (but soon for there!). No fishable hatch of Hendricksons
yet- there have been a few popping each day, but not enough to call it a hatch. I
suspect the the cooler weather has stalled the hatch a bit, but then temps
normalize starting Tues/Wed. The
TMA/permanent Catch & Release section finally started to pick up a
bit
since about last Friday- I got a water temp of 51 degrees in New
Hartford
after work last weekend, that's the highest water temp I've seen here
yet. Thursday the TMA only hit 43 degrees, and up in Riverton is topped
out at 41 degrees. Best bets
are still
nymphs & streamers, but there have been a few fish feeding on top in
Church
Pool when water levels have been normal. The permanent TMA has not yet
been
stocked, so you are fishing over mostly holdover & wild trout. Some
stocked
trout (mostly rainbows) are starting to drift into it too. Some nice
holdovers
& wild browns in the 16-20" range were landed in TMA last weekend.
Two 6-7# broodstock browns were caught &
released
on big white streamers outside of TMA. Seeing some Baetis Vagans (a
bigger, early season #16 Blue Winged Olive mayfly) down in the C&R
section.
Milder
weather has slowly but surely been making the water temps creep up
closer to
where they should be, and this will make both the trout & bugs more
active.
Hatches are still a week or two behind normal due to the cold winter.
Reports
are still varying from slow to excellent, depending upon who you talk to
(normally the case!).The river was kind to me Thursday 4/23, and I landed quite a few trout on a wide variety of nymphs. Slow & deep was the name of the game, and the strikes were quite subtle in the 41 degree water. Mother Nature was less kind to me, providing me with wind, cold temps, overcast weather, and snowing on me 4 times! Had to bust out the warm clothes & fingerless gloves. Flows were clear but still above normal & chilly
, so you had to carefully pick your spot and place your casts precisely on the current seems. I ended up picking up a couple of bigger stockers, both a rainbow & a brown. Those who have found pods of freshly stocked trout recently have racked up the biggest catches, but some bigger holdovers are mixing in here & there. Fish a spot, but if it's not producing, move on, don't linger. Lately the more water I cover lately, the better I do. I might come up empty in 2-3 spots, and then bang fish in the 4th. Nymphs & deeply/slowly fished streamers are the most reliable fish catchers in the cooler waters of the early season, doubly so when flows are up. The dry fly guys have been back at it when flows have been normal, and catching some fish at moments (ideally look for days without much wind)- overall the dry fly fishing has been slow lately though. This will change in the next couple weeks as water warms and we start to get into the hatch cycle. The Winter Caddis (AM) are waning but you may still see some, in the afternoons you should see Oives (#16-18 Baetis Vagans), Midges (#20-28) & Early Black Stones (#12-16). With the Caddis & Stonefly dries, try both dead-drifting them and also lightly twitching them, Baetis & Midges should mostly be dead-drifted. Sometime in late April we should see the first Hendricksons, they will probably be a little late due to the brutally cold winter.
Subsurface,
it's not too early to start fishing Hendrickson
nymphs, we are getting reports of a few hatching (not enough to call it a
"hatch" as yet though), they get active and end up in the drift a good
month before the hatch
begins, and Bruce Marino & Rich Strolis both tie us DEADLY nymps for
this-
ask and we will point you toward them. Hendrickson nymphs catch me a lot
of BIG
trout in April/May. A bigger #12-14 Pheasant Tail can also work well.
Hendrickson Nymph patterns can also pull double-duty as early season
stoneflies. #16 Olive nymphs imitating Baetis Vagans are also a good
choice
now, they are just starting up. Early Black & Early Brown Stoneflies
(sz
12-16), Pheasant Tails (sz 12-18), olive/green caddis larva (sz 8-16),
cased
caddis larva (sz 8-16), midge larva/pupa (sz 16-20, especially in red),
attractor nymphs (sz 12-18 in Red Headed Stepchild, Copper Johns, blue
Lightning Bugs, Yellow Prince, Rainbow Warrior, and egg flies (sz 10-18)
are
still a good choice (rainbows & suckers are both spring spawners in
March/April, contributing fish eggs to the drift), etc. Don't be afraid
to fish
some some gaudier/flashy/attractor-type nymphs, the trout sometimes show
a
preference for them, doubly true for recently stocked trout.
If you are fishing streamers, remember that a slower
presentation (swinging and/or slow stripping & twitching) matches up with
the slower trout metabolism due to cooler water temps- but as always, play with
your presentation and let the trout tell you how they prefer it, they may still
want a bit faster strip at moments. Try using a floating line and slowly
bouncing/hopping a weighted Fishskull Skulpin Bunny on the bottom- use a 0x-2x
tippet with this pattern & method, that fly is heavily front-weighted and
rides hook point up. If you are using unweighted or lightly weighted streamers,
use something to get them down- sinking line, sink-tip line, sinking leader, or
split shot. Slow & deep is typically the name of the game until water temps
get over 50 degrees and stay there (probably late April if you are downstream
of the Still River).
-Torrey