Bill's River Blog
Good evening one and all. Sorry if you all missed out on anything last week . The weather last Sunday was not very favorable to the simple folks who are still on dial up. The weather...Boy, that's something we've heard a lot of in the past week. Yeah it's been raining, we've done some research and discovered we have broken records for this month. The report is that we've had approximately 12 inches this month. It has rained 23 out of the past 29 days. Yeah it's been wet, the water is high and the wading is tough.
I don't care what anyone says, the fishing is some of the best I've seen in years. Although we haven't been able to do much on the floats but the trophy stretch and the ponds have been fantastic. We have actually done a few floats on the few days that the river is clear enough. The woolley buggers have work with moderate success, but the dry flies have been very productive and made the difference when you can find fish rising.
If you all are thinking about fishing the trophy stretch just be careful take your time and wade carefully, it can be done but very carefully. I even had a few gentlemen this week wading around and they said it was the best fishing they have ever had. We are still using nymphs and even elk hair caddis if you can get it to drift slow enough.
The ponds have been hot. Kinda of, actually with all the rain the water temps have come down nicely. We've been hitting some good evening hatches and dredging some nice fish up on wolley buggers. We even found a 6 lb brookie in one of these events last week. There is some great bass fishing going on right now which is a fun way to warm up the arms while anticipating the evening rise. We have the Hexagenia hatch going off right now and it's a great time to catch good fish on really large dry flies.
Hopefully the rain will start to subside and we'll be able to slide into a more normal state of comfortable wading and predictable water flows. Plus side again, the high water has tons of salmon up in the river and if ( and that's a BIG IF) you can get to water that other people can not, it may just pay off. In short the fishing is so good I wish I was fishing.
Peace, tight lines, and think No Rain thoughts. BILL
