timsfly

I get a lot of people show up at the park with their bass rods and 10lb line. I suggest they put a worm weight on, 1/16th is a good size on their heavy line attach a small barrel swivel on the 10lb line, add 30" of 2,3, or 4lb line to the other end of the barrel swivel, when the water is clear and low, I like a #16 or a #18 short shank hook, and I like to be able to hide the hook completly in the egg, the small hook will come out quickly and you can do a little C&R fishing, if you are quick when you feel the bite, you'll hook a lot of the trout in the mouth and not deep in their stomach. When the water is high like it is now a #10 or #8 hook will work fine, just add a few more eggs to the hook to cover the point, sometimes we'll use 3 eggs when the water is high and off colored. The lower the water the lighter the line I will use, I think right now 4lb will work just fine. Most people just want a limit, and I advise them to just wait untill the trout is pulling on the line and wait a second or two and set the hook. I always advise the fisherman that if a trout is bleeding or appears injured it should be kept. The worm weight will add plenty of weight, the barrel swivel keeps the sinker away from the bait and you'll catch plenty of fish, fishing this way, or we do at least here at Roaring River.

I have to write the truth, not everybody fly fishes Powerbait products seldomly fail, if they are fished correctly, funny how I'll see people fishing in zone 2 with powerbait and they aren't catching any fish, and then you notice the 10lb blue stren

I think the bass in the pic was caught on a white spinnerbait.

A buddy sent this pic to me, his son caught it out of their farm pond, gotta love farm ponds

7 1/2 to 8' would be a good choice for an all around 3wt. I sell lots of small 7' and shorter 3wts for R.R. fishing. TFO makes some good little rods, I have a custom rod builder who has several 3wt in the shop right now, there is a nice st. croiX in the shop on his rack, and several other brands. I have several 3wts in the shop most of the time. Come by and check out what I have in stock, I might have something that will work for you. I have plenty of reels also for 3wt and smaller rods.

I spool a lot of P-line on reels at the shop, it is much softer than the maxima. P-line is good, I never seem to have a problem with it on my spinning reels, but I don't spool much of it in the heaiver sizes, mostly 2,4, and some 6, I use the 6lb quite a bit for tippet when white bass fishing and when crappie and bluegill fishing.

The river has come up a few inches, not much and I figure it will rise a bit more when all the ice and snow melt this week, but unless we get a bunch of rain, and it doesn't look like we will, the river will rise a bit more, probably not more than a foot total. This shouldn't hurt the river a bit, it should remain clear and still be in the normal range. The colder water from the ice melt might take the hatches down a notch or two, but there will still be midge hatches and probably the caddis will continue to hatch. This week was really good, friday and thursday the weather was perfect, caught all kinds of trout on dry flies, caddis, B.W.O.'s, griffiths gnats, lt. cahills, and cracklebacks(light colored ones worked best) dries in the #16 and smaller size worked best. The water is still clear, so use 7X when fishing dries and 6X is fine when fishing nymphs, I still use a lot of 5X when fishing streamers(woolybuggers) and flies larger than a #10. San juan worms, glo-balls, pheasant tails, burlaps, copper johns and zebra midges were all working well this week, red san juans were best, and in the zebra midges black and red seemed to be the best. Water is clear so use 2lb line if possible, 3 is about as heavy and I will use, 4lb will work early in the morning and will not work as well later in the day, especially if the sun comes out. Jigs worked all week, black/yellow, white, olive, dk. brown and chartreuse worked all week. Power bait was the key for a lot of folks this week, the eggs in hatch brown, white, flo. yellow and orange were all good. If you were fishing worms, power bait, lucky lady, or the lucky strike worms, then white, cheese yellow, orange and pink were all good choices this week. A lot of fisherman were fishing spoons this week, and a lot of nice fish were caught this way, a spoon 1/6th of an ounce or smaller works well right now, gold is my favorite color for a spoon, but red, and black seemed to be working well this week also. Roostertails as always caught their share of fish this week, black, skunk, metallic gold and the metallic red were all working well. Zone 3 fished very good this week, night crawlers and power bait paste in white or yellow was working best.

I'm just glad Duane was around to help Michael catch some whites How many eyes did you catch Michael ? I fished R.R. this morning landed 10 whites, and two small walleyes, both were around 14" a few largemouth and several bluegill. Caught most of mine on white/gray clousers and chartruse clousers both with a bit of flash, fished on a 10' sink tip 6wt fly line.

Jerry the hatchery mangager here at R.R. told me several months ago, we would start seeing cameras here and there to help watch for violaters and such, and night cameras to watch around the hatchery at night. More cameras the better, I stopped breaking laws years ago I have a lot of customers that would like to look at the river before they drive 200 miles, just to find it flooded or high, at least they can take a look and know what is in store for them after the drive, more cameras the better, I like looking at the stream anyway I guess none of you know of the cameras on crane they have been there awhile now, just try to find them, they are at all the conservation access areas, and all are solar powered and are hidden on the creek, I think i have found most of them now, but you never know.

If I had know you were around I would have looked you up, I only stayed an hour or so, and then headed back to the house, I fished taney today also, but only for about 30 minutes at outlet 1 caught a few but couldn't stay long, had things to do.

I fished this afternoon for a bit, caught 4 and all were on a #18 elk hair caddis. I think I could have done better fishing a nymph, but the trout were rising and it is fun to catch them on top.

Welcome. Great pics, is that last one Swepco, it looks like it. Are the generating at Swepco now, someone mentioned last year it was going to be shut down some this winter for maitence.

I fish a lot of Shimano spinning reels and Casting reels, they are sure hard to beat. Some are a little pricy but I guess you get what you pay for, I've got some Diawa reels I really like that are over 30 years old, but you know I'm still putting line on Shimano reels I sold when I worked down at the lodge at Roaring River, some as old as 30 years I think Shimano makes a great reel, but I have seen some good reels for under 80$ over the last few years.

I had a customer in the shop yesterday, that told me he and a few friends all limited out on whites way up Roaring River fishing from the bank, last sunday. Said they were hitting very well while they were there, all were of good size. They were catching them on sassy shads in white and chartruse on 1/8th ounce round jig heads. Springs a comming.

Welcome to the forum. You guys are missing a great chance to do some trading with Alberto. Some of you bass guys that also trout fish need to trade trips, bass fishing here for some time on those streams in Italy, if I was better at bass fishing I would try to do some trading myself.

what ever pattern you have with you, if you fish it correctly will bring Crane creek trout to the surface, if they are taking surface flies They arn't very selective, usually.

If you leave the park on F-hwy you'll see a sign that says you are leave R.R. state park, 1/2 mile past that you'll see a Conservation parking lot, the hollow just above that parking lot(upstream of the parking area) is the boundry of R.R. No fishing above this point untill march 1st. Look at the R.R. maps phil has on the site, I think it is marked on the maps where the park ends.

yep that is about it, be quite, walk softly, carry a short stick with a big fly on the end of it. #8 beadheads work great for me, but you can catch em on smaller stuff, I use a lot of 1/32nd and 1/64th ounce marabou or woolybugger jigs, sometimes you need to get down quick, if you are comming in a few weeks, if the water is down and the day is nice, a stimulater will bring them to the surface, or a #12 or #14 caddis will work.

The fishing below the park is still pretty good, I landed 4 nice rainbows this morning, nothing big, just your usual stockers, I hooked and landed all my trout this morning on olive conehead woolybuggers #8's. Kevin from the hatchery stopped by the shop today, told me MDC would stock some of the waters below the park on wed, or thursday next week. The park opens for catch and keep fishing on the 1st of march.

Remember get there early if you want the free donuts, Terry has a bad habit of playing with the donuts if they are left out very long.

Kevin came by the shop today, and I think he said he stocked capps creek yesterday, and hickory today, and they will stock below R.R. on or about wed. next week.

Terry will be there Hooray Terry is writing a new book, House flys on my Butt section it should be a good read

Just got done fishing below the park at Roaring River, the fishing was very good today, not a soul in sight and lots of cooperative trout, even caught a big ole sucker, he was almost 25" and weighed I'll guess around 6lbs, caught him on a pheasant tail nymph. The river is in great shape, I started at the cemetery (muncy) and went upstream from there, right at the bridge, I landed 4 rainbows, I moved up above there to a small run nice hole, just not real big, thru a possum bug in there on a #10 hook, and a nice little 18" brown came up and slurped it right in, I guess the brown thought it was a sculpin dislodged from the hole above, it was very surprised, when I tightened the the line, small hole so it really didn't have a lot of room to fight, and I landed it pretty quick, but it was still pissed when it took off, covered me with water, moved up a few hundred yards there is a nice hole there just at the cemetery and it always holds a nice trout or two, well today it held 4 nice rainbows, I only landed 2 of them but had four nice hookups, moved to the riffle right above that hole, caught a nice 8" rainbow that sure looked stream bred, very nice color, I caught most of my fish on dk. olive mohair leeches, and a few on lt. roe glo-balls tied on 80th ounce jig heads. The next hole is quite a walk so I took off upstream, made it a few hundred yards and seen some movement ahead of me so I slowed down and saw a real nice 20" + brown holding in about 24" of water, I took the glo-ball off, and put a possum bug back on, and got out, worked my way upstream of the brown and cast 20 feet ahead of the brown and let the possum drift naturally down on the brown, I saw the fish move over, and he took the fly very quickly, I set, and the fight was strong, but didn't last long, the fly pulled out, but it was nice to hook that fish, it was in the 5lb range. Oh well moved up a bit further and started fishing just below the hill, and saw a few fish in the bend of the river, so back on goes the glo-ball, I could see they were rainbows, I landed 4 more rainbows there, and hooked a few that got off, but it was a nice morning all the same. I quit there and headed back down to the car, only fished a few hrs but the fishing was good, and nobody around, it was very peaceful, nice day to be out, even got snowed on a bit.

I guess I'll fish this weekend also. I'll fish fri, sat, sun, and monday I'm going to miss winter fishing.

Go to www.ky3.com their weather report is about as good as any in the area.