3wt

Almost everybody that tries out trout fishing without a buddy that knows what he's doing feels this way for a while. Even with help, there are plenty of fishless days. There is a whole different feel to trout fishing - keep everything very natural as it would present itself without line attached to it - if it's supposed to swim, make it swim, if it's supposed to drift aimlessly down the stream, make it drift "dragless." Use lighter tackle and stay 2lb. on line. Sometimes you can cheat and go up to 4 lb, but if you learn to use 2, you'll never have to question if you're too heavy. It's plenty of strength for most trout situations. To get the most out of trout, give up the bait. Go artificial. Rooster tails, mairbout jigs, drifting tiny lures under a float all much more fun and very productive ways to catch trout. You'll thank yourself and one day be able to look down on bait fisherman the way people here once looked down on you...maybe you'll even become a fly fisherman and learn how to be a real snob towards bait chuckers. Also, the bait zones in trout parks attract the "meat hunter" crowd that do their best to pull out as many fish as possible as quickly as possible in as close proximity to eachother as possible. So those areas get fished out quickly. Learn to MOVE ON. Work the stream. If the trout aren't moving or looking at your offering, change, if they still aren't wade on and try again. Many aimless hours have been spent trying to force fish that are just not eating to eat. Just because you can see them doesn't mean they want to gorge themselves. If you could see Bass the same way you see trout, you would probably be surprised at how many there are and how many don't just jump at the opportunity to feed. If trout were easy to catch, most of us wouldn't be doing it. It eventually gets rewarding. Don't give up, just give up the bait.

So what's the fishing method? Down/across swing? Just below the surface?

I'd say if you only want to get from Baptist to a little below Cedar on the first day, you're setting up for a couple long days (your last day should be the short one). I'm with you on the concept, because the fishing is better in that section. This will make your second day a big push. I'd put the rods away and get to paddling and try to make it to pulltite. Then it's like 10 miles the last day. You may be driving home later than you like that day once you're out of the water, dried off, packed up, shuttled around etc. I'd call it do-able, but I've never done it. I've seen Baptist to Two Rivers considered a three-day trip. Spend some time in the evening of day one fishing, I don't think you'll have much time anywhere else I've done Baptist to Akers in a day, and it kind of sucked. Zero fishing, little stopping. Yes, marabou jigs are a good bet. I haven't fished out of the park with a spincast (maybe ever) but I see guys doing it, and the standby's work great: 1/32 oz. black/yellow, white, olive, brown olive. Probably some bigger ones for browns. I'd guess rooster tails are a good idea. I think people have some luck with the mini-crank baits, but watch your regs...I'm not sure what is allowed up in the blue ribbon area - I always just fly fish there.

If you have the time park at Baptist, wade fish upstream early in the morning, then back down. Then get your rigs in the water and float on down. If you are looking to catch trout, I'd take your time between tanvat and cedar grove anyway.

That usually seems to happen around the "free fishing weekend."

I'm with Al. 400 feels like it would be pretty tricky, especially alone out of the park.

Looks good right now at the Montauk gauge http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/uv?site_no=07064440. If there's been a lot of rain, and the ground is saturated, some heavy day long or night long rain will do it. But it looks lowish so unless the apocalypse rides in I don't see what the problem would be...but I'm not the weatherman.

Wow, how is it low this year? Maybe lots of frozen precip, but slow cold melt causing a long delay in discharge?

I was there the weekend after labor day. Not bad on the crowds. Not exactly a ton of fish, but I'll take tough fishing with fewer people over easy catching in a crowd any day. We had to switch campsites when we got there, and I was surprised to find that they had some vacancies as late as Friday afternoon...not normal for the "on" season.

About a week and a half ago, my buddy tore 'em up between the park and tan vat on hoppers (green stimulator). I finally switched and got a nice rainbow and missed several on the same fly. Nice size fish with lots of color were coming out of nowhere to grab the thing. Seemed like the wiser fish were accustomed to being opportunistic for grashoppers randomly floating by.

Internet research. Lots of good info out there. You can google Ken Rockwell - his site has a ton of detailed review on Nikon stuff. People have very polarized views of the guy, but for a beginner there is a lot you can learn from him. If you stay within a brand, you will generally end up only buying that brand names lenses. And the brand name stuff is pretty good...the real question becomes what lens selection makes sense for how much money you want to spend... If you end up Nikon and don't go for the D90 or D7100 - go with the normal kit lenses (if you get both - 18-55 and 55-200 or whatever they are...the 18-55 is a good all purpose lens) they are pretty good. If you want to do natural light, buy the AFS 50f1.8G...I highly recommend it for taking pictures of your kids...It stays on my camera body most of the time...I just have to get a little further away from them sometimes. I think there is a good telephoto zoom that people like, but it's spendy (I think it's the 70-300mm) If you spend the money, just remember that you shouldn't ever have your camera on the full auto setting. It will take some time, but for anything but snapshots you need more control to make it justify the expense of the purchase.

Yes the D90 definitely is. I think it may be obsolete and the replacement was the D7000...I can't keep track. The image stabilization on the new afs-g ed lenses is cool. I can shoot at pretty slow shutter speeds, way better than with film which is all I can compare to. That is a function built into the lenses. I think you can get new lenses that are not afs-g but have the image stabaliztion. Not sure since I'm stuck with a D5000 and have to use the AFS-G stuff anyway. When you look at the used (or new for that matter) market for Nikor glass, and see how many more options there are and how much more affordable they are, you will wish you spent more on the body. If you don't want to ever invest in lenses, buy the cheapest DSLR you can find (D3000? or similar) or question if one of the better new point and shoots with better lenses is more your speed.

Two cents from a Nikon DSLR user. Try to convince yourself to get up to a body that has the AF motor built into it. The AF-S G are great lenses, but expensive, tough to get, and of limited variety. If you get up to the 7100 (If I remember right), you can use a whole host of "cheap" lenses that don't have an auto focus motor built into them. The world of very nice older Nikon lenses gets opened up, and you'll come out ahead in the long run. And end up with a higher end body also.

I'm with pruett. Durability for sure. If you've been tolerating leaky waders, just go for an outing this time of year - the wet crotch and feet won't just be a nuisance. If you're sold on flyfishing, and you don't want to be buying them ever other year, or with cabelas getting them replaced every other year on warranty, then put the money up. You'll save in the long term, even just on shipping to get warranty service multiple times. Ultimately, the comfort and durability of the higher end (not just top of the line in the higher end) will pay off. You won't be sorry.

Stockingfoot is a no-brainer. Breathable too. Hard to say the "for the money" part, but I think I'd go w/ either Cabelas or Simms. Simms tends to closeout ther lines around this time of year, so try google-ing "simms closeout" and see what you find. Lifetime warranties are nice, since even the best ones fail eventually. Cabelas better waters have a warranty I think. Simms are definitely the gold standard, but you pay for it. Gore tex is a superior breathable material. Tough, and they hold their licensced manufacturers to high standards for construction and seaming methods (the real weakpoint in any wader). The fit of simms or other quality waders will strike you also. Compared to hodgman or white river etc, they don't have quite the "I'm wearing a trash bag" effect, and there's not as much excess stocking material (which gets old if you get neoprene wrinkles in them once the boots on.) You'll be lucky to stay under $250 w/ simms once you find some good (non felt bottom) boots. But you'll only spend it once. Oh, and I have the convertible style that can be hip waders w/ a built in belt or full chest. I like this on the Current because ~ 90%+ of the time I'm nowhere near chest, and on a hot day it's a big difference not to have the chest section up...and ifyou hit high water the conversion is very simple to go back to chest.

Looked into the sewing thread thing. The threads with diameter and break strength listed online were nowhere near the quality of tippet. Couldn't find any that actually got down to 6x, and also it was far weaker than non-tippet mono. There may be a thread that is thinnner and stronger than mono or tippet, but I didn't find it.' Also not saying it doesn' t work. If it's clearer and more supple, and you can tolerate the lack of strength, then more power to ya.

A guy I ran into at Cardiac Hill in about 2002 told me about the sewing thread. But what he showd me was not particularly thin and consistent in diameter, and had terrible memory. I kind of humored him and said "I'll have to try that" and never have. Maybe I'll give it another look.

The lake is not the water above the dam. Most people just call that area "the dam." I agree on 4 lb line. I'd say always go with 2lb test regardless of water conditions. It's plenty strong when you learn how to use it. Was this your first time trout fishing? It sounds like a familiar story for first timers without somebody helping them out. One of the keys is to not keep fishing one spot that is not producing. You have to keep moving and keep trying different lures. Next time try black/yellow, olive and white jigs. Also find the acesses in the "fly only" water (above the dam) that are further upstream and learn to wade and work throught the water. Many bad days of trout fishing are caused by beating the same fish over the head with the same thing for way too long. It gets better. You learn to love the challenges.

I can't comment on the current situation, but several years ago when the water was very low Baptist Camp was a much better bet than Tan Vat. Down from Tan Vat there was quite a bit of ankle to calf deep water with few good fishy spots. Between Tan Vat and the park there are more nice fish holding stretches. More park stocker escapees too. I liked going both down and up from Baptist. You can hit nice water with less trudging through shallow riffles. But the river could be different in that below tan vat stretch now... Also, Montauk is a very nice park. I'd focus on the fly fishing only area. It's one of the prettiest stretches of stream anywhere. It's almost too bad it's so popular. Much more of a back woodsy feel than the other trout parks.

The dry heat seems to make wilts worse. Cut a branch of the affected tomatoe and look at the ring of tissue right beneath the green skin. If it's brown you have some kind of soilborne pathogen. Then take the cutting and stick it in a glass of water. If you see a stream of distinct white stuff coming from the cut then you have bacterial wilt. If not it is most likely fusarium or veriticilum wilt. If only tomatoes are affected it's probably fusarium. Pretty sure verticilum is not real prevalent in our part of the country. So if tomatoes are the only one affected rotate and try to put tomatoes in a spot that has not seen them in a few years. There is some evidence that planting mustard greens in fall and plowing them under will help cotnrol bacterial and fungal pathogens in soil. There are also biological controls that are supposed to help, mainly sporulating bacteria that are beneficial to plants and competitive to other microbes. I would imagine that heavy ammendment with compost should help in the same way. Many common hybrids around nurseries are VFN (covers both fusarium and verticilum but not bacterial wilt). Celebriety, better boy, others. If you're into heirlooms not much resistance out there. I think the rotation schedule would probably be your best defense since it sounds like have the room. If you do determine you have verticilum, you need to be more discriminating on the order. Verticilum affects almost everything, so if you rotate out an affected crop and rotate in a different affected crop you won't be doing anything. And not to brag, but I picked a total of 2 okra pods this year. I know...pretty impressive.

If you have the luxury of rotating your tomatoes every couple of years do it. The idea would be to be to have a spot that has not had tomatoes (and other nightshades like peppers and eggplant) in a three years. So maybe do corn in a spot for a few year, then move beans in, then squash (maybe could reduce SVB infestations), corn. If you have enough "types" then a yearly cycle can work out nicely. I know this because I currently cannot do this, and have fusarium wilt (fungus) built up in the soil where I put my tomatoes. Not a good thing and difficult to deal with and you really never get rid of it. So if you have the space and do a pretty good variety then rotate every few years. The nitrogen fixation from legumes is nice, but not as nice as just adding compost. But if you end up wiht a soil born pathogen you'll wish you had avoided it.

Trout are supposed to be reserved for us snobs. “If our father had had his way, nobody who did not know how to fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching him.” -Norman Maclean

Great report. If you wouldn't mind, can you describe your nymphing rig(s) in more detail. I am the worst nymph fisherman, but I want to get better. I've been finding that my typical attempts lack weight and enough distance from indicator to fly (ies). Anyway, sounds like you do some euro or hybrid styles that are interesting and I'd like to hear more about it.

I don't mind company, and probably won't fish all that much except in the morning anyway. It's the unending nose to tail canoe train that I can't handle on the current on weekends. Maybe I'll try to talk everybody into taking a day off and floating on a Friday or Monday.

I'm kicking around the idea of a float on the eleven point on some saturday next month. I've only been on the elevenpoint once and it was over 12 years ago. Ultimately I'd like to be in the best trout area for maybe a single day without having to rush too much. What float would you guys recommend? Any chance we'd miss the types of crowds that are usually on the current on a summer Saturday? I was probably going to just do a day float and camp, so if there are worthwhile campgrounds It woudl be nice to know - I don't think the folks I'll be with will want to overnight it on the river. Thanks