timsfly

I thought the podcast had a lot of good information, I would reccomend listening to it if you care about our trout waters at all.

Been some good fishing, lots of nice fish around, plenty of eagles around to keep an eye on you while you are fishing, I had my best luck this weekend on buggers, but on monday afternoon I did very well on caddis and para adams, both in a size 18, got away with 6X tippet, might have done better if I had scaled down to 7X but I was still doing pretty good with the heavier tippet.

Fishing was very good today, been good all weekend

Let me know when your coming and I'll have a few for you.

I've had one or a couple of years, I actually have 3, they are all fun.

I have heard thru a very reliable scorce that Governor Jay Nixion is coming to Roaring River to shoot the gun to start the fishing on march 1st, should be a hoot. Who all is coming this year ? Going to start on a thursday, that makes for one long weekend, of fishing.

Pins like that can be purchased for a lot less than 10.00$, but they could be sold for 10$ and any profit could go to Healing Waters or some other deserving charity.

Purple/olive green buggers did well on Saturday, I had two over 3lbs

Well the hatches weren't as heavy today, but still a good blue wing olive hatch about 2:00 and lots of midges. I caught all mine today on the cream mega worms and small egg patterns.

Fishing has been great, the water is low and clear now making for some really good winter dry fly fishing. Caddis, Blue wing olives, midges and even a few ants and beetles are showing up on the warmer days. Having this kind of warm winter really makes for some comfortable fishing, lots of the afternoons are light jacket to shorts and tee shirt weather, fantastic for winter fishing. San juan worms, are still working as well as ever, the lighter colored ones are doing better for me most days. Pheasant tail nymphs, gold ribbed hares ears, copper johns, sow bugs, scuds, brassies, zebra midges just about any small gray to olive nymph is working well right now, size is important, most fish will hit a #16 or smaller nymph quicker than they will the larger sizes, right now. Woolybuggers are working everyday, olive, black, tan, white and dk. brown are all good colors right now. We are catching a lot of big fish right now, on bigger streamers, now if you are going to fish the bigger flies don't expect big numbers of trout, you'll catch bigger fish on the average most days. Dry flies I'm fishing are #16's and smaller, use 7X tippet with the dries, I'm still using 4X most days, but I'm sticking to the bigger flies, if you are using regular sized buggers and nymphs 8-16's I will use 6X tippet. The upper part of the park is holding more and bigger fish, but if you are looking for less people go to the lower sections of the park, fishing is good and #'s of people are way down compared to the upper end. If you are going to use a spinning rod, you'll need 4lb or smaller line, glo-balls are good, jigs in 1/32 and smaller are good right now, use same colors as the woolybuggers, small 1/16th (single hook spinners) or smaller in black, brown, chartruse or olive have been good.

Had to go work a few hrs yesterday at the shop, it was so nice out I had to leave early and go fishing, I went down to the conservation area, it is on map 7 of the R.R. maps here on the forum. I used a new 4wt bamboo rod and and new reel,(got to try these things out before I can sell them) I fished from the cabin downstream to the first good bend in the river back to the left, this is a good hole, caught 4 out of there on an olive bugger, caught all my fish yesterday on an olive bugger. I walked back up to the car and went down river to what we locals call muncey, down by the muncey cemetary, I fished here a bit and caught 3 more, nothing over 14" yesterday but nobody around either, it was nice. This eagle was my only helper all day. I stopped by crane yesterday and managed a few trout there also, nice weather, it is hard to stay inside.

That is a good place to start, but don't go upstream from there or your fishing zone 3 and you'll be breaking the law. You can fish downstream all the way to the lake and your fine. No fishing in zone 3 during the winter nov. thru the last day of febuary.

Pheasant tails, hares ears, sow bugs, scuds, brassies, flies like that are on my list at the shop nearly all year, in sizes #12-#18's unless the water is big brown and rolling then it is big streamers and bright colored nymphs and GLO-BALLS

Sorry Brian I am normal, wouldn't want a RHW anyway, but if I had one more Bogdan, that would make me an even 10 and that would be plenty.

Brian, I need another Bogdan, a nice baby trout or maybe I need one more large trout, I like th fixed drag reels LHW no reels with a drag

I bought a bogdan once with a drag, it sucked.

Yes in the tail

With or without bead, I use a bead some, but a lot of times I just weight it with lead wire #6-#16 hook 3Xlong is what I use most of the time Black or blue 3/0 thread Grizzly hackle Purple tinsel chenille (most of the time) olive marabou tail Pearl/ dyed purple flash a bou I the several of these for myself every year, I've had a few good fish on these at Taney

Puppy chow is to big, you should know better, rabbit feed is a lot closer to a trout pellet, in size.

I know, but people look at me in the store, like I'm nuts when I tell them a purple bugger with an olive back might catch them some fish, so I figured I had a fine speciman on my hook take a pic and you know, let em see it seemed a good idea at the time.

Why is olive such a good color at R.R. and other area creeks ? I use an olive/pearl/purple/grizzly woolybugger with a few pieces of olive/pearl or just plaing pearl flash on a #6-#14 long(3X or 4X) hook and sometimes catch fish all day long, this little minnow hit the olive/pearl/purple woolybugger in a #14, so I guess they are eating each other as well, but with the purple in this little minnow and that dk green(olive) back, is it any wonder why this weird combo works so well, I've caught a lot of nice rainbows on this color combo about 10 minuted before I caught this minnow, I released a nice 4lb rainbow on the same fly. Just food for thought, and don't ask me what kind of minnow that is in the pic, I just call them shiners, or a darter, but I don't really know its true name, but R.R. is full of them, we also refer to them as brown trout candy

It is an ok reel, but there are a lot of better reels for about the same price, both Echo and TFO make a good reel for around 50$, and if you can spend a bit more, orvis, TFO, Loomis, and several other companies have good reels out there for just under 100$ and just a bit over 100$

Shock gum is good stuff, especially good if your fishing a quick action(fast) (stiff) 4,5, or 6 wt makes using 8-6X easier with these types of rods, I've sold the stuff for years, good for bass fisherman that pick up a fly rod a couple of times a year

You are right Phil, there are lots of stories about stockings and you guys know there was a hatchery on a small creek that runs into crane, good chance those mixed, but the are a self sustaining stock of rainbows, I doubt they are a 100% pure Mcloud river rainbows anymore, but they are a bit of fun now and again, and they do fight every bit as hard as any wild trout I've caught out west. So you are right Phil, we should just be thankful we have these trout on Crane and Mill creek and leave it at that, the conservation dept isn't going to admit to anything I've had lots of stories told to me from employees of the conservation dept about taking trout out to mix the eggs and the milt with the hatchery trout to make them better, and that was 30 years ago, no telling what they have done over the years, but I'm sure they are always trying to make the hatcherys better, and wild stock might help from time to time, go fishing and get off the computers for awhile, as for me I'm heading to crane right now and see if I can catch one or two of those feral trout.

Go over to Hargroves, he will take good care of you, and he might have a good pair of quality lower priced waders, either way he'll take good care of you.