timsfly

Zone 3 is closed from nov. 1-the end of feb. every year. Now seems most people don't know where the end of the park is located. The new bridge with the whistles in it is not the boundry (end of park) that is the start of zone 3. Zone 3 ends a mile or so below this point, at what we call Off Davis Holler, if you park at the Conservation Parking lot on F hwy. and walk straight down to the river, you'll see a cabin, this is private property, now just to the north/west of this cabin is a small usually dry stream this is Off Davis Holler, from the mouth of this stream down is below, Roaring River state park, above this small stream you are in the park. I talked to a guy today that was fishing within the park boundries and he didn't realize he was in the park, he was parked right up by campground 3 and had been walking down where he thought the park ended. Lucky for him Jimmy was busy upstream, some young boys in front of the lodge were fishing, and he had pulled in to tell them to quit. So the boundry for Roaring River state park is Off Davis Hollow or holler it is on most maps. Good luck.

Well it would have to Roaring River for me. I have lived and fished on it my entire life.

Water is up a bit and in great shape, a bit off color but not bad, I caught 9 nice trout today one about 15" the rest were smaller, most were over 10" but two were just about 6" long I caught the two biggest on a tungsten(barbell eyed) # 8 Pine squirrel fly, it was heavy and weight was important today. I fished the section below the dairy farm. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7639...p;id=1079224376 This was the best one I caught today, it wasn't huge, but it was in great shape and it jumped several times and was a good fighter. The last one of the day had the most color, it was about 12" long and very pretty.

#14 cracklebacks work best for me most of the time. If you are fishing a dry midge, well you fish it like any other dry fly, if you are talking about a zebra midge, fished in tandem with another fly, fished about 30" deep is what I do most of the time. I like a pheasant tail, or copper john in a #14 or # 16 as my lead fly and I'll use a black, brown, olive or bright red or orange zebra about 16" behind the lead fly. Most people use a small indicator, but some of the guys sight fish or watch the end of the fly line for movment. I'm open fri, sat, and sunday 10-1 3hrs is enough for anyone to have to work in a day. Fishing starts at 8a.m. and stops at 4 p.m. fri-mon.

I have tied and caught fish on 32's, true more pull off than you land, but it is fun and what do I care, going to turn them loose anyway. I tied a few of the new gamakatsu size #30 midge hooks this year when I was on the juan, only hooked up a few times with them and never landed a fish on one, but it was fun. I use #22-26's all the time, and have good luck with them. I use more #16's and #18's as I get older and they are just eaiser to fish. I tied a handful of #30 glo-balls a few years ago, took me almost 2 months to finally hook and land a fish over 20" and I did that at taney, I hookd a few 20"+ fish on the small hooks, but after a short fight the hook pulled out. The little glo-balls were fun, sometimes a fish would take them 3 or 4 times before I would finally get the hook in them the #30's were so small the fish didn't seem to regiester them as a danger. 6X tippet will fit thru the eye of a 32, but you may have to trim it to a point to get it to go thru the eye.

There were caddis hatching off yesterday at Roaring River, and lots of midges. We catch them on Caddis, adams, renegades, small griffiths gnats, and about any color of midge you want to throw, black, gray and white are my favorites. The river is looking much better, able to see fish pretty well yesterday. Cracklebacks will catch fish most every day, I have even caught them on beetles and ants on the warmer days in dec, and jan.

Fished R.R. today started up by the conservation parking lot just outside the park, nobody around and it is a beautiful day. I got geared up, took a new bamboo fly rod to play with, and walked down the path, near the cabin at the mouth of Off Davis holler. Right at the mouth of Off Davis, I saw a trout right away, nothing big, holding in a eddy, one cast, green bugger and I landed him very quickly, not big but very pretty fish. I started to cross over and go on downstream, when I saw a flash, up in Off Davis, usually a shiner or two up there, as it only holds water during rainy periods, well I got to looking and sure enough there is a nice little 13" rainbow holding just behind a log, I notice it is going to be a fast drift, so I put on a tungsten headed hares ear(flashback) and cast just a bit above the fish, held the rod up high, let the nymph swim over the log, and let it drop right in front of the trou, again, fish on and this one fought a bit better, did I mention the little rod I'm throwing is only 5' in length, neat little Orvis Mighty Mite I picked up last year, it throws a DT-5 very well. Well I start looking around and see another fish up above me about 20 yrds, well this turned out to be a sucker, but just above him there was another 13" rainbow, these fish were moving up stream, I was now just below the bridge that crosses the stream(Hwy F bridge) I caught this fish on the same hares ear, and it was another pretty fish, well I just thought I would see if there were more up the little creek. I had years ago found trout up this stream maybe 2 miles above R.R. I kept walking and kept finding a trout here and there, one small pool had three rainbows, and I caught two of them, all about the same size and all on my #14 flashback tungsten hares ear, I was having fun now, the creek was getting smaller and more shallow, but I knew just up the way there was one small pool that if it was full would have 4' of water in it right now, I was sneaking up on this pool when a doe blew up beside me scaring the crap out of me, she ran off a bit, gave me a good side veiw, blew again and she was out of there, she will make a nice doe for some lucky hunter in couple of weeks. I found the pool, and it had 2 trout in it, one rainbow and one brown, both were holding at the head of the pool, where it narrowed up. Same thing, cast in, the rainbow hit, short fight and another pretty 12" rainbow, the brown, was acting spooky, so I set on a rock and had myself a hot tea, I had brought my travel mug full of hot tea with me, I sat for about 15 minutes the brown went back to holding beside the rainbow, so I snuck in, made a decent cast above the trout, the fly drifted in and I caught the brown, now I would like to say it was huge but it was only about 12" long, very pretty. That was a good day, and the fact that there were no other people around made it very nice. I got back to the mouth of Off Davis holler and went ahead and crossed, made it to the first pool, caught two more 12-13" rainbows, decided to call it a day and head back to the shop. Sometimes it pays to walk off the beaten track, you never know what kind of little jewels are out there waiting to be found.

Crane didn't look to bad this morning, it is up about a foot. Flat creek at Jenkins is big, bad and brown, probably up 6' + Roaring river is in good shape, the uppper end is up a foot, the lower end below dry hollow is up about 3' the river is still fairly clear, not muddy yet.

Kenneth caught this last week, another nice good looking spring fish. 10lbs Kennneth lives in Ponca Ctity Oklahoma.

There was another 9 1/2 pound rainbow caught yesterday, it was not released, so it is gone, but it was a nice looking fish, another trout that escaped the spring, it is going to be a nice winter here at the park this year.

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Yeh the fish looks great, not a fish stocked by the hatchery, fish like this escape the spring when we get lots of water, they just swim out looking around for better water, or they are out looking for suitable spawning areas, they do this all the time. Fish like this are perfect no scarded up nose, full fins and tails, spent there whole life in the spring hole up at the hatchery. That is where the 10-15 lb fish come from in the winter, the hatchery hardly ever stocks trout over 8lbs, they used to stock 10lb fish 25 years ago, but haven't done this in a long time. For kids day this year they actually took a few fish out of the spring hole and put them in for the kids, that is why we had a few over 10 this year. First time they had ever done that as far as I know.

Steve Hash from Tulsa, sent me this pic a few days ago, he caught it just as the park was closing, caught it on a small white jig, the fish was 26" long and weighed 8.5 lbs, great fish we should have a fantastic winter season this year.

Water murky kinda high about a foot, throw big bright bunny bugs, woolybuggers with lots of flash should do well. when I left the other day, #14 copper johns were good red was the best colors. Use lots of sinkers or a sink tip line is a good thing to have when the water is up like it is. the water isn't that high but the flow is really fast, good luck.

I just got back from New Mexico last night, but talked to Duane, he is running the shop He told me the water is fine, didn't get that much rain at the park, if you look at the USGS gauge, it only came up a few inches.

yes it is always march 1st - oct 31st for the regular catch and keep season. the C&R usually starts the second fri, sat, sun, and monday of Nov.

Michael I think that is a great idea, having a trout contest where it is catch and release and on the honor system, good luck. Should be some good pics, there are a lot of nice fish swimming around in taney right now, saw a lot of 4-6 pounders yesterday.

Fishing has been good the water is mostly clear, clairity is about 7' when the sun is up you can see the entire bottom in most of the holes. Good dry fly fishing this morning, mostly griffiths gnats.

Yes, lots of lightning, north of the park just a few miles north of the park, some area were getting over 3" of rain we just lucked out here at the park, the water looks great this afternoon

Roaring river did not flood, we received 1.5" of rain at the park last night, the river is still mostlsy clear, it does have a greenish tinge to it, but unless we get a bunch more rain, it should clear pretty quick, you can still see fish in the pools so it isn't to murky.

Come on down, I'll be here till thursday afternoon, looks like the fishing will be pretty good, all the fish I caught this afternoon were fat and healthy, all fought very had, seen lots of nice looking fish. Come on down.

Fished taney a bit this afternoon, fish were stacked up in the outlets and the fishing was good, I don't usually fish the outlets but there was room and I didn't feel like putting the waders on for a few hrs of fishing. I started at #1 outlet and never left lots of nice fiish in there today, caught most of mine on a small brown zebra midge, caught a few on a san juan worm, white. Caught several on a small #18 fur bug, and caught one nice bow on a #22 adams parachute. I fished about 2 hrs and landed 10 nice fish and of course hooked a few that never came quite to hand, but it was nice and the fish were hitting good, so it was a good time.

I'm trying, I buy most of my gas, and groceries at Crane.

Water is low and in great shape, yesterdays rain didn't do a thing to the river, but it sure cooled things down. The water is very clear, 2lb line is best, do not use a line with a blue or white color, as this will spook the trout. Great trico hatch this morning and I'll bet it will be good all week. We are experencing some really good caddis hatches everyday, #14-#18's work well right now, parachute adams and royal wulffs in the same sizes are working well also. With the summer heat comes some great terrestrial fishing, beetles, hoppers, ants, catapillars, leaf hoppers, and all kind of bugs are in the water right now, beetles are working great for me, I'm have a good time catching fish on beetles right now, big stimulators and big foam attractor flies are working great right now. You can still catch trout on pheasant tails, hares ears, zebra midges, copper johns, brassies and sow bugs and scuds all day long, most nymphs I'm fishing right now are #16's and smaller. Marabou jigs and micro jigs are all working great right now, best colors are olive, black/yellow, gray, tan and white. 1/32 and smaller are working best. Spinners are still working well in the mornings, black, brown, green, white and skunk are working best right now. Any small crankbait, 3" and smaller will work well now in zones 1 and 3. Eggs and worms are both good right now, eggs, brown, white, orange and flo. yellow, worms cheese yellow, orange, white, and pink. In zone 3 nightcrawlers and powerbait paste has been working well. Tim's Fly Shop

River is in great shape, still low and clear.