High water fishing

[longbowman58]

What do you "pros" out there do when you have high water situations?

 

[joebamboo]

Not a pro, but I stay home and tie flys!

 

[McSneek]

Play golf, cut grass, pull weeds, make nice with the wife, etc. and wait for the water to come down. Plenty of posters on here will claim they're out tossing 6" streamers in the back eddies and catching monster browns but I think they've been reading too many magazine articles.

 

[longbowman58]

Glad to hear it's just no me! I stay home and feel guilty but can't see why I should go!

 

[bigjohn58]

I feel this weekend was more about water temperature drop then it was about the water being too high. Kettle Creek dropped over 10 degrees after all that rain.

 

[sandfly]

Bigjohn58 hit it on the nose water temp drop all across the NC area shut them down..temps came up today and fishing picked up.

 

[mike_richardson]

On the first fork, I could not get my flies down, I had on a 5/32 tung bead, and 2 size bb shot. I would miraculously get them out and drift the bank in about 2 seconds. If I would get out a bit from the bank by the time I would lift my rod to sart the drift the flies would pass me. I could not find any decent slow spots. So after 45 mins i just sat back at camp and lived up the mountain air.

 

[CRB]

Just like steelhead up here, use 90* drift. I use upward of 6 bb size shot spread out along leader 1/2-3/4" thingamabob. Fish the tails of runs looking for slack water, and edges. one would be surprised at where the fish hold when streams are up. I also use heavily weighted flies, if your not getting held up on the bottom your not deep enough

 

[djs12354]

longbowman58 wrote:
What do you "pros" out there do when you have high water situations?

I'm no pro, but I'd rather fish high water than not fish at all.

I'll add weight and depending on the situation, suspend under a thingamabobber, and fish the edges.

 

[SBecker]

Fished high water today on my local tailwater. Awesome caddis hatch but not a rise in sight because of the high, cold, clear water. Resorted to a copper headed black rabbit bugger and picked up fish along the banks

 

[PatrickC]

Swing big streamers! Vary the length and weight of the sink tip based on the flows.

 

[AllWaterAngler]

When its at its peak, there's no reason you should feel bad about staying home and tying...but the day that it is still murky and the water height is falling, you need to get out!! Fish a san juan or streamer and you will usually do quite well, especially if there are browns in the stream. The best fishing, I've found, are on both sides of the high water, fishing when the water is rising, and then again when it is falling in height.

 

[BelAirSteve]

Cast streamers around fallen log jams and let them swing into the main current, and keep stripping! The first time I ever fished high stained water I caught the fish in my avatar. Before I landed that one, there were MANY vicious missed short strikes - huge wakes following the streamer - amazing.