FlyFishinFool

Went down to BSSP on Mon-Wed 5/5-5/7. Temperatures were very warm (mid-80's to low 90's) and the wind on Tue afternoon & Wed was strong - 15-20mph gusting to 25mph. Fishing in Zone1 was decent, I caught over 90 fish in 18 hours of fishing (3hrs starting at the whistle & 3hrs in the evening). Most fish were average to OK, 12"-13+" 3/4lb, and fought well. Caught several pretty decent ones running 15" pushing 1.25-1.5lbs, and two that were well over 16" that I estimated at 2lbs (did not weigh, just C&R and keep on fishing). I used mostly dark beadhead midges (tungsten & brass beads) sizes 14-18. A couple of guys were having good luck drifting light-colored mini-jigs and several were doing good stripping green cracklebacks. I watched one guy take a bunch of fish throwing a Royal Coachman as a dry fly. Of course as always, there were a couple of folks taking fish throwing glo-balls. Drifting midges & other nymphs, and stripping green cracklebacks appeared to be the most productive methods. With the Free Kids Day the prior weekend, the increase in crowds was not evident in Zone1. I heard from a couple of folks that Zone2 & Zone3 were a bit more crowded than a normal weekday since that was where they stocked the extra fish and a few lunkers for the kids. Over all a pleasant couple of days of fishing, warm weather, a bit of wind, some cooperative fish and the opportunity for a little solitude. On the bad side, the muskrats continue to breed like crazy, I saw a lot of little ones, and looking at the trail side of the river is like looking a long brown strip of Swiss cheese - hopefully DOC will come to the realization that too much wildlife is not necessarily a good thing. They need to thin out the rats before the entire trail simply collapses and drops into the river. Finally, there must have been a really big hatch of water snakes this spring as I saw more snakes on the stream than I have ever seen in the last 40+ years. There were multiple snakes swimming in the stream all day long, and frequently you could count 8-10 at the same time swimming upstream and downstream on the non-fishing side of the stream. Several people commented on the large number of snakes, and one young lady I spoke to decided to skip fishing since in her opinion "fly fishing was definitely overrated when there were that many snakes nearby"! Hope y'all get a chance to head down and enjoy the great spring weather and the fishing.

Finally spoke with my friend who was down fishing last weekend (Fri-Sun). He and his buddies fished primarily Zone 2 from the outlet down to above the Whistle bridge. They found fishing was pretty tough Fri & Sat with warm weather and clear bluebird skies. On Sunday, with overcast and sprinkles, they hammered the fish. Caught tons of 12"-14" fish and several BIG keepers, including 2 lunkers. They fished both flyrods and spinning gear using black & yellow jigs and mini-jigs, light colored thread jigs, marabou jigs of various sizes, midges (mostly dark), glo-balls and a smattering of other flies and lures. Overall, with the great final day, they were happy with how the fishing went.

Jerry, I agree with NoLuck's comments. Also, the stream is smaller and often clearer, so you will probably have to use a lighter/thinner tippet and avoid brightly colored strike indicators. I have seen trout at Montauk swerve away from bright strike indicators 5-6 feet ahead of the indicator. Try drifting with no indicator, or use an opaque thingamabobber which they don't seem to see in the water.

Went down for a couple days on the 9th & 10th. I have seen several posts commenting about the miniature trout, but that was not my experience. Perhaps it was what they were using for bait, but I had a really great time (C&R everything). On Wed. it was really cold in the morning (just above freezing) but warmed through the day. The fish were biting well in the A.M. and then really took off in the evening. Average sizes were easily running 12" and I caught several in the 14"-15" size and one about 16", I caught less than 1/2 dozen in the 9"-10" size (nothing smaller); overall I caught more than 30 trout fishing about 3.5 hrs in the A.M., and fishing another 3 hours in the P.M. I caught another 40 trout - overall an absolutely great fishing day! In the morning there were 8-9 people in the section of Zone1 I could see, but by 9AM I had more than a 1/4 mile of the Zone1 stream all to myself. In the evening, after 5PM, one other guy and I had the entire section of Zone1 from the handicap piers to the dam pool all to ourselves - he was stripping grey woolies, and I was drifting midges - we both caught lots of fish. Now Thursday morning the winds were blowing a lot and the bite was a bit slower - I only fished about 3 hours in the morning and caught just shy of 20 fish, but one of them was the biggest fish of my short trip - well over 16", I am guessing over 1.5+ lbs (did not weigh). There were a lot of fish in the water, almost like it is on summer weekends, when you have a whole school of fish just downstream of you taking advantage of the "shuffle-food". In the mornings most of the people fishing were catching their 4 keepers in an hour or so, cleaning them and then heading home - thus the lack of competition on the stream. If my back would have held up I would have stayed a couple more days, but you can only do what you can do. I have a friend who is fishing BSSP Thursday-Sunday, I will find out how they did & post their results.

Hi Jerry, Congratulations on the retirement (I guess?). I saw in the next post that you got caught in a termination reduction - that sucks....same thing that happened to me a few years back. I have not been down to BSSP since we were flooded out last August (only fished a couple of hours before the flooding), and that was the first time I had gone since I had a back injury early in the summer. Hopefully will be going down a little more frequently in the future.

Trout cam having issues? - Been stuck since before 4:30 this afternoon. Someone down there give it a kick!

Just a heads up - the best furled leaders you can buy are again available from: http://thesimontons.com/Fishinggear.html Dad & Em are once again taking orders online for their furled leaders. Apparently they slowed down taking orders for a while simply because their schedules just got too loaded. I speak from experience when I recommend their Spiderwire furled leaders - they are super strong, but lay down a nymph or even a dry as smoothly as silk. I just ordered a couple today! They also have some great Nymph leaders and the Bennett Tinge thread leader will absolutely disappear in the BSSP water & drop a dry fly without a ripple. These leaders are priced for less than many other available furled leaders (like Feathercraft) and will outperform them as well. Note:I have no financial interest in these products, I am just a well satisfied customer who likes a great product!

Almost 50 years ago I was working at Sunnen Boy Scout Camp in Missouri, and while fishing Iron Creek that fed Sunnen Lake, a couple of Scoutmasters were working their way up the creek with flyrods. I knew they were using fly fishing gear based on reading Field & Stream, but had never tried fly fishing. When I asked about their gear, they stopped and showed me their rods, lines, reels and the flies they were using and then proceeded to let me try their gear and gave me a brief lesson in flycasting. The next day they stopped by my cabin in the Staff Area and offered me the use of a spare fly fishing rod and gear for the rest of the week they were at the camp. Because of their generosity in time (and risking their gear), I managed to catch several fish over the next few days...but I was the one who really got hooked! So, the next weekend I caught a ride into town and went to the Potosi hardware store (the only place locally where they stocked fly fishing gear) and proceeded to spend almost an entire week's paycheck on a Garcia 6wt fiberglass rod with a Pflueger clicker reel and a spool of level floating flyline. I used different weight mono fishing lines to tie my own leader and also for my tippet. Then I bought an official Boy Scout fly tying kit and proceeded to learn how to tie some basic flies, including wooly buggers, a couple of "fuzzy" nymphs, some type of dry fly (I don't remember what) and some really ugly little floaters using scraps of cork, left-over feather trimmings and even some hair from a couple of the critters in Nature Lodge! They may have been pretty rough and some were downright ugly, but they caught fish in the creek and the lake. The next summer I was back on staff at Camp Sunnen, and one of the "adventure" options was a multi-day float trip down the Current River. We used to transport the troops to the Baptist Youth Camp below Montauk on Sunday evening and then they departed Monday morning for a 4-5 day float trip. That was where I first had the opportunity to fish for trout in the Current River below Montauk from the Tan Vat access to the Baptist Camp access. I caught my first trout on an olive wooly-bugger that I had tied in my tent working by flashlight. Like most people, over the years my available time to go fly fishing has gone up and down a bit due to work and raising a family. So even though the knees, back and a few other parts are starting to wear out, I plan to still be fly fishing for many more years...after all, I have grandsons that need someone to teach them how to fly fish!

FYI - The 3M Company has decided to sell Scientific Anglers and Ross Reels to Orvis http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/205597691.html

I have had the best luck with Verizon in the area you are asking about. It is not perfect by any means, but it has been far superior to AT&T & Sprint. I usually find that if I am in a spot with no reception, I can usually get a couple of bars by just going around the next bend as I fish down the stream. I use a G'zOne Commando.

I was down last week during the weekdays (I try to avoid the weekends as much as possible) and the crowds were pretty light. With the water level low and crystal clear, and the bright sunny skies and hot weather, the fishing was slow but steady. Regardless, I still had a great time and caught a lot of fish. There was not a lot of dry fly activity, I saw almost no hatches except one evening for about 15 minutes. When they did start to hit the drys, you had to be quick, change flies, and get it out there fast, because after 5 or 10 minutes they would stop all surface activity. I saw a lot more sub-surface activity where they were hitting emergers (or something!).

FYI - my brother was just down on the White in Arkansas and they do NOT have a ban on felt. Unfortunately, they also have Didymo (rock snot) established from the dam downstream quite a ways.

I wonder if using Armor-All leaves any petroleum-based pollutants in the water? Just asking.... I use dishsoap and water with a soft sponge to clean, and then use SA's Line Dressing.

Spent last week fishing down at BSSP - made sure to leave the park before the Free Fishing Weekend crowd buried the place on 6/9. We had some of the best weather for fishing that I have seen in a couple of decades, mid 60's at the whistle and low 70's by the early morning, and a max of low 80's in the afternoon and then back to the 70's in the evening, and mostly sunny (a few more clouds mid-day would have been appreciated) - but all in all just wonderful weather! The water levels were basically normal, but the flow rate was down a bit. Water clarity was not crystal clear (had a slight greenish tint and just a little debris) but overall, sight fishing was good. The fishing was pretty decent every day, obviously with some days better than others, and a couple of afternoons (with the bright cloudless conditions) that were at best slow but steady. I fished mostly in Zone #1, wandering up and down the stream as the mood struck me. Best fishing was drifting small dark midges (green, yellow, white, brown, black, olive) but sometimes it seemed that you had to change flies to catch 2 fish and then change flies again to catch the next 2 fish, etc.. Also had decent luck fishing pheasant tails and stripping some darker soft hackles. I saw some folks having pretty decent luck stripping cracklebacks (various colors). I also saw several people doing very well with tri-colored glo-balls and a few folks having success with a bedspread colored mini-jig. There were almost no hatches seen at all, and fishing on the top was basically an exercise in patience - you would eventually get a fish to rise and even take a dry, but only with long stretches of time where all you were doing was practising your casting skills. If you like to fish with spinning gear, I saw several people doing well with one of the old "early morning standbys" the black & yellow maribou jigs and black & gold roostertails. Later in the day a few people had minimal luck throwing red roostertails on spinning gear. To sum up the week - MAN! it was great to be back on the water! I caught a LOT of fish, enjoyed great weather, met some old friends and a couple of new friends, and just generally had a beautiful week fly fishing. What more could you ask for??? ;-)

I have heard several people complaining that the MDC method is terrible advice, and you would be better off with running shoes! My brother and I were down at Bennett Spring in normal water levels, and he commented it almost looked like an ice skating rink! ;-) In the first 3 hours of fishing, we saw 5 people slip and fall, with 4 of the 5 going completely under the water. It appears that either some folks are having issues with the no-felt sole learning curve, or they all must have followed the MDC suggestions!

If it is not to late to answer - if you have to use whatever you have on hand, make it light or white in color, and then clamp a small split shot a foot or so above the fly. I have caught crappie on chartreuse cracklebacks before - if you have some time, tie a little bit of anything white (yarn, etc) onto the hook end of the crackleback. However, the earlier answers were correct - the best things to use are the little maribou jigs in white with some flashaboo, or a very small clouser in white/red/light.

I looked on the Arkansas Fish and Game website and do not see anything regarding banning felt soles. I recommend you check with a local warden or agent to get confirmation and avoid anunecessary fine.

Hey Mitch, perhaps this is simply a case where your experience is significantly less than all-knowing?? Hmmm? Just read the article about one of my family member's church (fortunately they had attended the earlier service), located 15 miles east of St. Louis in the rolling farmland of Illinois; http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-08/justice/church.shooting_1_trent-pastor-gunman?_s=PM:CRIME

I used to own a couple dozen acres on the Meremac, including a 2 acre island in the river. According to most of the comments in this post, because the island got flooded over every few years, it was open to the general use of the public. Now this island had dirt (not gravel) brush and a big stand of trees. Nevertheless, the party animals routinely pitched tents and cut down live trees and started fires on my island. My solution was whenever I found party animals on the island, or on the large gravel bar directly above the island, I just moved upwind of the party group and burned off a bunch of the drift piles of wood and then cut and pitched on plenty of the scrub cottonwood and miscellaneous brush that collects around the wood piles. I got a lot of yelling and complaints, but eventually they all moved down river to find a less smokey location to hold their parties. Of course every week I spent hours cleaning up the trash that the party-trash left behind. Just one of those things you get owning property on the river. When families stopped on the gravel bar to take a break, eat lunch and let their kids explore the island; they were welcomed. I almost never had to pick up trash behind regular folks & families.

Sorry I missed you guys - I could not make it down on Friday as I already had a pheasant hunt arranged with an old friend from up North, and I have the bird dog! On Saturday there was no wind for a bit over 2 hours in the morning, so I caught a lot of fish between 8:00AM-10:00AM, but only on midges - no dry fly action at all. I know what you mean about the strike indicators bouncing, after 10:00AM the wind started picking up speed until it was blowing 20-25mph and gusting over 30mph for the rest of the day. However, there were still fish willing to bite, but as you indicated, the bites were very light and I am sure I missed more than I hooked. I fished most of the day with size 16 midges in several colors: olive, brown, black, blue, green and even a white. Caught the most fish on the darkest colors. I might get down there for one more day on Monday 1/9 (cannot make the weekend as I have kids & grandkids visiting) but that will be it for me for a while. Hope you and your family has a great New Year!

Jerry - Great video, thanks for posting it! Your initial post said you were going down on 12/30, did you stay more than one day? I was down 12/31 for one day and kept an eye out for you and your silver egg, but did not see you. Hope you have a great New Year, and perhaps we will connect sometime in 2012!

I was fishing at BSSP yesterday, the water is a couple inches above normal and a little cloudy. Best suggestion I have is to get up early and get on the water as early as possible. Yesterday there was no wind until after 10:15AM - of course there was no one else on the water for the first hour (I love having the whole stream all to myself!), and there were only a couple of folks fishing until almost 10AM. By 10:30 it was blowing 15-20mph and by 11AM it was blowing 20-25mph and gusting over 30mph. I caught about half the fish I caught for the day in the first 2+ hours. After the wind starts the best I can suggest is to work the wind gusts and cast close when it blows hard, and cast long when the wind slows down. Most fish were caught fishing midges or small emerger patterns. Good luck!

Many years ago I bought a White River (Bass Pro) Hobbs Creek reel as a backup for an extended trip. Basically the entire reel was cheaper than buying a spare spool for the Orvis reel I already had. I just did not like the way the reel balanced/handled or how it looked - bought it because it was cheap! Lesson learned, if you don't love it when you buy it,it does not get any better with time!

You are correct - Monday's are open for C&R. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

There are many indicator fly recipes around. If you do not tie flies, feather-craft sells a fly called (for obvious reasons) "indicator fly" - and yes it will catch fish who hit this fly. http://www.feather-craft.com/wecs.php?store=feacraft&action=searchadvanced&advancedsearch_words=indicator+fly You can also make a very simple foam fly out of red/yellow sheet foam from any craft store - they also work well.