Jeremy Hunt

It was another great day of fishing at Roaring River. I went by myself and the goal today was to only fish dries and see what I could trick into biting my tiny little morsel .Last week I fish I threw a few dries and had really good luck so I thought If I spent the whole day fishing dries maybe I would have a chance on hooking something bigger. I really haven’t caught that many big fish on smaller dries because around here it seems like the only thing that bites small dries are dinks. I think if you fish small dries you catch small fish. I’m sure there people that would agree that the bigger the patterns the bigger the fish. I believe that over all the years I’ve spent on the water. Every once in awhile there maybe exceptions to the rule, but it most cases it is what it is. It was a nice day with little wind and made fishing ideal. There were a few more people in the parks than usual which made fishing difficult at times because I couldn’t get into some of those places I knew were holding big fish. I still was able to get into some great water and have a few chances throwing flies for big fish. One thing I did differently then what I was doing in the past was really change up the flies I was throwing and fish for one big fish for a long time. I wanted to park on the spots I did get if they were good because the park was so crowded. I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity on getting a good spot and then leave and not getting it back. I spent the first part of the day in the upper section having luck beetles, black caddis, and parachute adams. If you think for a minute that these trout don’t know the difference in dries you’re wrong. I threw about fifty different types of dries and they were real selective on what they wanted. And the size had to be dead on as well. The only thing I could get any of these trout on where sizes 16 and 18 on most the dries I was fishing. They were also picky on the color of the bodies. Don’t get me wrong, I did catch trout on all types of caddis, but they did zero in on one color over any other color and it was definitely black bodies with black hackle with a natural deer hair for the wing. There is a big black caddis hatch in a size 20 that is coming off about two hours before the park closes. You can catch trout after trout if you fish it right. I ended up catching more fish on the caddis over the adams, but the adams did catch the bigger fish before the day was finish. I finally had this idea to go in the lower section of the river and spend the rest of the day there. The first thing I did was go to the last hole where I caught that 7 pound rainbow the week before. I will always check that spot out because every time I go down there nobody is ever fishing it. I think it gets over looked for being a good fishing hole. I will let them keep thinking that (hehe). Well guess what? I threw in a size 16 gray body adams and had this drift going for days and didn’t get rewarded with this fish until the very end of the drift. It must have been a forty foot drift with an awesome current speed creating this drift for days. I saw this fish rise to it at the front of the drift and then he followed it all the way until the drift was almost over and took it right before I was going to lift my line off the water and recast. I had on about a 22 inch rainbow and it was one of those takes I will never forget. That is why I love throwing dry flies. And to catch a trout like this on a dry is something else. After I caught this fish I said to myself it was worth the drive.

No Problem , Anything I can do to help.

Add me to the list. Anything I can do to help? Maybe bring the vise and show a few local patterns. Sounds fun!!!

Thanx, jh Sounds good... I should be somewhere in the upper section.

Hey Steve, We are going this Monday(12/17/06). Maybe we will see you down there. Look for a black nissan frontier, that's me.

Just did it. No big fish. One nice browny caught on a dry. That's it folks Maybe next time.

Hey Jayhawk, What time are you going. I'm going tonight. There will be a half moon and the temp is going to be perfect. I think it will be a great night. I'm feeling lucky. jh

Fished Roaring River yesterday and I must say it was nice to fish the whole park with not many people there. They had a little rain which made fishing better than the previous weeks. I started fishing eggs, but switched immediately over to dries when I noticed how much activity was on the surface. I didn’t have but one dry fly on me because I left all my dries at home. I had a little elk hair caddis hanging out in my tach it fly box so I tied it on. It was a size 16 with a ginger body, ginger hackle and the wing was natural elk. It worked really well until I lost it after catching about ten fish. I saw Tim and had asked him if he had any caddis because I left all my dries at home. He was nice enough to give me a couple. I’m glad he did because without those I would’ve been out of the game. They seem to work as well as the one I lost. The only difference was the body was black and they seem to want a 16 vs. an 18. I didn’t fish anything else because the bite was so good fishing dries. Who would want to switch over from fishing a dry? Not me when you fish tail waters that really don’t have true hatches except midges. It’s always nice to see fish rise to dries. And to see these trout go crazy on dries the way they did today makes me want to go back for more. Tim, I know you will read this so I just wanted to say thank you again for going out of your way to bring me back some flies from your shop. It sure helped our day. Fish of the day was this nice brown caught on a Elk Hair Caddis

Yes, I agree. They're something else. This one was one of the bigger ones I have seen in awhile. I use to put these in my aquarium and watch them turn colors.

Went to Roaring River today and my girlfriend caught this sculpin on an egg fly. LOL

I agree AZ trout with what you are saying. I used to be against eggs, but if you want to catch big fish you better throw eggs because those big ones will take them all the time. If you look at the egg Tim took a picture of with the yellow and red dot tied on the jig head. That is the one I have been using. I fished a little before dark last night right after I started this topic and they hit it every cast and all the way until dark. The only reason why I stopped fishing it was because I couldn't see my indicator anymore. All rainbows and the biggest one was 20 inches. I’m really having a lot of luck down past KOA in the stretch right before you get to the houses (lookout hole). I’m fishing out of my boat. But you could wade the same water I’m fishing in. I really don’t think it matters where you fish it. These trout aren’t picky right now I promise. I’ll also be down there on New Year’s Eve. I will be down there to give my support and also help with casting, presentation, or if you just want to learn more about the river I would be glad to help anyone out. I can also bring my vise and tie up with anyone who wants to learn a pattern real quick.

If you have read my reports I have been writing about this fly for the past month. It kind of all started with the whole Roaring River thing. I finally asked Tim who owns the fly shop at Roaring River how to fish eggs at Taney because I have seen him fish these below chute two in the calm water and catch fish after fish. That got me thinking about the whole egg thing. Trout relate to food the way they see it. You have to remember that trout are raised seeing food fall to them. I think they will always remember that so it makes since to me to fish eggs on the fall. I have never fooled with eggs until opening day this year at roaring. I figured out how to fish them there and was wondering if this same technique would apply at Taney. It took me a while to figure out the color. I found out real quick that it takes a certain jig head weight to make this egg role right on the bottom. That is real important when fishing eggs. I think presentation is the key for sure. Even the way I cast it out to make the fly role right. It all has to make since to the fish and how they see it. I was just reading a report on here and they were even talking about catching browns and eggs were falling out. Their not done eating eggs and because it is so loud and they can see it from far away is the only reason why I am hooking so many fish on it right now. I am fishing the egg out of my boat with the water off. And sometimes I would throw this in dead still water and they would hit it on the fall. It could barely role and they would hit it. The color that has been working the best is a yellow glo-yarn with a red dot on the top. I am tying all these on a 1/100 jig head hook with the head painted orange or a pinkish color.

Fishing as been extremely good at Taney. The trout aren’t too picky right now and everybody seems to have their rods bent. I have been fishing egg patterns and some midges at the end of the day. I have been spending a lot of my time down by the boat ramp and floating all the way to lookout hole. Over the last few days we must have caught over two hundred fish and five or six really nice browns and one really nice rainbow. Nothing over twenty two inches and I would say most of them were eighteen to twenty. All caught on egg flies. We did catch some fish on zebra midges in black, but nothing of any size. That’s why I’m sticking to the egg bite right now. Here lately I’ve been catching something big every time I fish this fly. We all have those days when we want to fish the same fly all day because it is working so well you don’t want to switch it. It really doesn’t matter what you throw, all I can say is take advantage of this and get down there and fish. You won’t be disappointed I promise.

No...it is not robbed. It's mine. I guess you can say it's between me and the fish. I think he had chew in his mouth. Lol

I caught this brown the other night and he was smiling at me. LOL

That's correct! Buy a book on three things; Entomology, pattern book, and how to read water. That helps me everyday and you will find your self looking at these through out your fly fishing experiences I gaurantee it.

Went to Roaring River yesterday and met Chris from tying class. He met one of his friends from Kansas City so there was three of fishing. I got there around 10:30 in the morning and boy it was crowded with people. I forgot that it was probably going to be busy because of the holidays. I have been so spoiled the last couple of weeks because there has not been anyone fishing down here so I guess you could say I’ve had the river all to myself in a way. I went to Tim’s fly shop and talked to him for a while and met back up with Chris and his buddy around noon. As soon as I met back up with them I was thinking about going back to Taney instead of fishing here. I think they were thinking the same thing I was. The game plan was to get in his truck and go look at the lower section of the river before we decided to head out. I went ahead and put my rod in his truck just incase we came up on some fish or a spot we could fish. We went to the last pool and looked over the hill and saw that there were some big fish and nobody was fishing for them. I only had my rod and the fly I had attached to the end of my tippet. I already had it rigged with an egg pattern so I threw it in and with in the first couple of cast had a 7 pounder on. I asked Chris if he had a neat and thankfully he did. I didn’t have my camera either so I was hoping he had one of those too. He did, so we did get some pictures of the fish. I will post them as soon as I get the pictures from him. As soon as we put the fish back I made about three more cast and caught the other big fish we saw. I would say she weighed around 5 pounds. We also got some pictures that. After catching those two fish I decided to stay and maybe see what else the day would bring at the park. While we were all fishing down there they didn’t catch anything of any size, but all in all we caught around forty fish between the three of us while we were down at the first spot. We went back upstream throwing the egg and having little to no luck with this pattern today. It was little different then the pervious weeks before. I would have to say it was from all the pressure. Everybody was probably fishing eggs that day. I went ahead and switched over to little midge patterns and had most my luck on size 18 v-rib midges tied in black with a 3/32 nickel tungsten bead for the head. I also fished some wooly’s in ginger trying to get a big fishes attention with no luck. We didn’t catch anything big for the rest of the day, but the park was fishing well if you knew what the fish wanted. I would ask some people if they were having any luck and some said they were doing great and other said they didn’t catch anything all. I did see a father with his hands full trying work with four kids and teach them how to catch trout with a fly rod. I watched him for a while before I made my way over to him. I told him I was sucker for kids and asked him if I could help him change his luck and maybe have a shot a catching some trout with his kids. I gave him some flies and showed him hot to fish it before calling it a day. I really hope that helped him and his kids catch trout.

Hey Lost, I read all the post and there is some good info that should help you in the future. I just have one more thing to add. What I see happens to beginners is the "presentation" theory. It’s kind of like this.. lets just say you go in a local fly shop and they say this and that is working so you buy a few. That’s not to say you are going to know how to fish them or where the best place to fish them. You need to learn a little about how to read water so you will understand how you should present each fly to the fish in the proper water. If you really don’t know where or how the fly your fishing relates to the fish it can definitely hurt you on a lot of things. One thing I read you talking about is the #10 split shot you were using. You need to ask yourself a few questions when you fish weight. How fast the current was you were fishing, and how deep it was for the size split shot. That always will be factor when fishing flies you need to get on the bottom. I try not to fish split unless I have to. I would rather weight my flies when tying them. Fishing in shallow water with little current or none I wouldn’t even add split shot. A good indication that you know you are fishing to heavy for that amount of current is if your fly is always catching bottom. Another important thing you should know when fishing with an indicator is the “dead drift” I can’t emphasize this enough. This is where people can have a bad day on the river. When you are fishing a scud or any nymph pattern that lives under rocks etc. it is important to make sure it’s on the bottom. And when fishing you have to realize that your fly doesn’t sink to the bottom as soon as it lands on the water. Fishing split shot that is light will take longer for it to sink depending on how fast the water is. So ask yourself this… how long was your presentation when you’re drifting this in front of fish. I always have thought the longer the drift the more fish see it go by them. It is important to learn how to cast distance so you can cover more water with your flies and get longer drifts. So here is an example of what I mean and I hope this make since. When you cast your line out, are you casting the fly line right in front of you across current and then mending your line to start your initial drift or are you casting up stream to get the fly to sink faster and have a longer drift after the fly sinks. If you cast across current you are not getting a long enough drift for a lot of fish to see it. I just think this helps your odds in the long run. We all know we have enough odds working against us every time we go fishing whether it is the wind or a bad knot day etc. jh

Hey... just wanted to post a few that I have been catching in the last 3 weeks.

I decided to go out in my pontoon boat last night. I started around 11:30 and put my boat in right up at chute one. I went up to the cable to see if I could anything to hit up there. I knew that didn’t get much pressure so I thought maybe I would have a shot at that “state record” cruising along up there waiting for something I had to offer. I always have that thought in the back of my head like most of us do. Come to find out there was little to no current up there because it is so wide I couldn’t get a good drift swinging any of my streamers. Before getting tired of that I tied on a white fly in a size 10 that was mostly tied with marabou and had some small hits but nothing really wanted it too aggressively. I decided to float down a little and get into some current. I ended up stopping just below chute two. I let down my anchor and casting in the tail end of the outlet and before the fly had a chance to start swing I got a massive hit. I knew it was good one, but it was hard to tell until I got the fish right up to me. Once I got it up to me I walked to the bank to get a picture of it. It was a nice brown that was around 22 inches. I did see three guys fishing glow in the dark indicators in the chute so I decided to ask one of them if they could take a picture with me and the fish. I was glad they did because it was a really nice brown with good markings. I was fishing a Matuka type fly with squirrel for the wing and pearl chenille for the body. Overall this fly was the fly of choice on this night. That made me think it was going to be a good night. I ended up fishing all the way down to the boat ramp before the night was over. I was having the most luck on two patterns that had fishing pretty much consistent all night. I ended up catching about 15 browns and two rainbows before the night was over. They were all decent fish and most of them were all over 15 inches. A couple of the other browns I caught were 18-19 inch range. It was one of the better nights for me in the last couple of weeks.

Glad to have ya.... Cajunangler I also grew up fishing for bass (in Texas) and was blessed to fish Lake Fork when they first built it 1986. My family had a lake house there. I still fish for bass but on the fly rod. I haven't really got out and fished the Niangua or the Gasconade much so I am eager to hear some of the reports in the future. Maybe we could get together and I could show you a little bit about the layout of Taney. Drop me an e-mail. jh

no problem Terry

Got a late start heading to Roaring River today. I took my girlfriend Summer and one of my good friends Eric. I wanted them to get some practice catching some fish because they are beginners to the sport and I thought this would be a great way to get some practice time in and maybe get them on a big fish or two. We got there around noon and went to Tim’s shop to buy a few materials and see what the scoop was on the conditions of the river. He told me nothing has changed and do the same thing I did last week. So that’s what we did. I was surprised to see that there was only about thirty people total fishing today at the park. I was glad to see that because I knew throughout the day we would have a chance to fish every spot if we just walked around and fished and waited our turn. What my thought was, it would increase our chances for sure. When we got down there I saw that the same area was open as last week so we decided to start there. I got everybody rigged up and we split up into one person fishing each pool. I knew that if we were all fishing this loud fly in the same pool they would figured out pretty quick. We all starting catching fish right off, but nothing of any big size was taking it. I saw some big fish come over and smell it and get real close to taking it, but not just nailing it like they did the week before. I did catch a nice fish, but it took me all day. I caught it in the first pool way up at the front of the park. It seem like the only reason why I caught it is because to me it look like there had not been any pressure in it for some time. I say this because of the way this trout took the fly. He was hungry that’s all I know. My girlfriend was downstream and had the camera so I had to holler for her to come up and take a picture of it. I didn’t measure the fish, but I would say it was around 24 inches and weighed around five pounds. I would say between the three of us in a four hour span we caught around fifty or so and missed another twenty on setting the hook to fast before they had it all the way in their mouth. All I know is if you want to see a lot of action throughout the day just throw an egg and you won’t regret it. I used to think that I was to go for an egg, but my thinking as changed a little. The key to me is to catch big fish and if that means throw an egg to get one of their attentions then that’s what I am going to do. My only thought now is, How many big fish could I have caught throughout the years if I was fishing egg patterns. I know there will be many more chances now and I’m ready for the challenge.

What I mean is... You don't tie a whole hook with material from the eye to the point. You are only tying a portion of the hook. So in reality if you see a hatch in a size 20 you need to tie that fly on a size 18 for the right proportions. If you tied it on a 22 it would actually look like a size 24 to the fish. jh

That's what they are. I have only caught a few trout on these. I don't think trout like really overdone patterns... if you know what I mean. I catch more trout on zebra midges vs. anything else you can throw at them when it comes to midge patterns. I really thought the black one would do well but it doesn't seem to or I'm doing something wrong. I tied a green one with the orange dot on the side and did really well back in the day, but that fly has slipped my mine and I forgot about it. I thnk I will tie a few up.