Lookout

Lookout

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

In need of some rain.

Having spent the weekend reacquianting myself with my log splitter, I decided to make the 5am run to the river before heading off on a 2 day work trip. I was optimistic when I walked out the front door and was greeted by a cool crisp pre-dawn morning.

Having not even passed the river in over a week, my optimism quickly faded as I was blown away by the water levels in some of my favorites spots. I opted for some of the deepest water I could find and sporadic rises greeted me as I entered the water. I thought I saw some Tricos and, based on the very subtle sipping that was going on, I tied on a sz 20 Trico to my 7x leader and proceeded to miss the first bunch of takes that came my way.

At this point, it's only about 6:30 and the water temperature was reading 64 degrees. The rises seemed to slow down dramatically and I decided to change to a larger prospecting fly as I worked my way back down stream toward my car.

I managed a couple of browns around 16" and, as I was removing the fly from the first one, I noticed that the fish appeared to feel warm. I decided to skip the photo op and get this guy back in the water as quickly as possible. I laid into the second brown pretty quickly thereafter and it was at that point that I just didn't feel like it was prudent to continue fishing so, I soaked in the cool and quiet of this fine morning and enjoyed the walk back to the car. I hope everyone out there exercises some smarts as they are out and about!

8 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'm dying to get out but know its probably best to wait a couple of weeks. Hot air and low flows are a bummer.

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    1. yep - seems like the early AM or late night runs are out as well... soon enough!

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  2. Good choice to surrender. I just wish the triple 0 to 2 weight 9-10x crowd would do the same. What they fail to realize is light tippets on small rods with larger fish equates to exhaustion and probable death by their quarry. Same thing some of them complain the "bait" guy is doing....

    I agree with Steve Z, wait a few weeks and see how we fare. I have a hunch our fall may have lots of precipitation in it as this has seemed to be the pattern the last few years.

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    1. True enough...I guess I could practice my tying :(

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  3. It's getting pretty toasty out there. I take the temperature before I start just in case. Too warm, go home.

    Mark

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    1. Good idea Mark...looks like my trips to the river might be purely recon for a couple weeks.

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  4. A wise and prudent decision. I have decided not to fish until flows come up and temps come down.

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    1. sadly, same here...even with some storms in the forecast, that does not seem like it's going to help much...we need a couple, 3 days of solid rain!

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