3wt7X
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2008
- Messages
- 704
Weather and Stream Conditions:
We started fishing Friday evening around 5pm, with cloud cover and temperatures in the upper 70's. The water was clear and running at about 240 cfs. We floated Saturday from Barnum to Westernport, with rain on and off, and 60 degree air temps. The water remained clear and stable at 240 cfs.
Insect Activity:
The bugs were diverse. Plenty of small midges (size 24), terrestrials (ants, beetles, and small hoppers), several variations of caddis, but the most prevelent was a size 14 tan caddis. Stoneflies mostly brown size 18, with the yellow and lime sallies getting stronger at dusk. Isos (size 12) were around but not in big numbers. Sulphers also made a sparse showing around dark.
Results:
Friday afternoon was very good. I started by fishing a size 12 Stimulater with a caddis dropper, and I had fish responding to both flies. A long drift was required to get them to eat the dry. The fish really started looking up towards dark, and I was able to cut the dropper off, and take about 10 fish in an hour and a half. They came up to Adams dries, CDC yellow sallies, CDC limes Sallies and Elk Hair Caddis. I found that rotating dry flies helped with the refusals that I was sometimes getting. Most of the fish were Browns with few rainbows thrown in. Saturday was tougher, we had some tough floating conditions with the low water, and it did not seem that anything was responding to dry flies. We had our best luck, parking up on the nicer runs and nymphing them up with a stonefly and a hot pink san juan worm tandem (bait fishing). We took quite a few on Saturday before 9am, but it really slowed down after that. In all, it was a great time on a great river. My poor man's drift boat worked okay on the high grandiant North Branch and fun was had by all.
We started fishing Friday evening around 5pm, with cloud cover and temperatures in the upper 70's. The water was clear and running at about 240 cfs. We floated Saturday from Barnum to Westernport, with rain on and off, and 60 degree air temps. The water remained clear and stable at 240 cfs.
Insect Activity:
The bugs were diverse. Plenty of small midges (size 24), terrestrials (ants, beetles, and small hoppers), several variations of caddis, but the most prevelent was a size 14 tan caddis. Stoneflies mostly brown size 18, with the yellow and lime sallies getting stronger at dusk. Isos (size 12) were around but not in big numbers. Sulphers also made a sparse showing around dark.
Results:
Friday afternoon was very good. I started by fishing a size 12 Stimulater with a caddis dropper, and I had fish responding to both flies. A long drift was required to get them to eat the dry. The fish really started looking up towards dark, and I was able to cut the dropper off, and take about 10 fish in an hour and a half. They came up to Adams dries, CDC yellow sallies, CDC limes Sallies and Elk Hair Caddis. I found that rotating dry flies helped with the refusals that I was sometimes getting. Most of the fish were Browns with few rainbows thrown in. Saturday was tougher, we had some tough floating conditions with the low water, and it did not seem that anything was responding to dry flies. We had our best luck, parking up on the nicer runs and nymphing them up with a stonefly and a hot pink san juan worm tandem (bait fishing). We took quite a few on Saturday before 9am, but it really slowed down after that. In all, it was a great time on a great river. My poor man's drift boat worked okay on the high grandiant North Branch and fun was had by all.
