TDB wrote:
I'm surprised to see all of the negative reports this year since the PFBC has amended the stocking effort as they saw fit.... (sarcasm)....
It is too bad that a good thing has really taken a dump...
I gave the Tully another try yesterday afternoon/evening. It was cloudy with a spritz or two of rain every so often. The air temp was in the mid 70's in the late afternoon. I wasn't really crowded just as I had hoped, probably because of the weather. I fished below Rebers and the water temp was 63* and the flow was169cfs, just about perfect for this time of year.
There were big Sulphurs, surprising big (size 12) hatching sporadically in the afternoon and evening with a few rising fish here and there. There was some smaller sulphur spinners and some misc. small caddis buzzing around. This was one of the few times I have seen more mayflies than caddis flies hatching on the Tully.
I caught fish, maybe 7 or 8 mostly on nymphs and a sulphur emerger. Nymphs used were generic BHHE, FBPTs and sulphur nymphs fished mostly on a dropper behind a parachute sulphur dun or a sparkle dun. Nearly all fish were decent sized browns, that I guessed were recently stocked in mid April. I caught one smallish rainbow that I would guess to be from the past fall fingerling stocking, and one larger rainbow that may have been stocked recently.
All in all an okay day, but judging from my fishing success as a whole this season, I agree with Pcray that overall the numbers of fish are down in the Tully. In the past, under good stream conditions, it was not unusual to catch 20+ fish in an afternoon or evening fishing.
I will have to admit that the fish fought pretty well and several actually jumped when hooked, also they were colored up fairly nicely, but they are not anywhere in the class of fish that grew up in the stream as fingerlings. Just my 2cents Mike.