OKFlyFisher44

There are a few other places to access the river besides the dam. Read through some of the other posts and u should find directions. I'm personally not a fan of fishing up by the dam, I prefer to stay downstream but I havent been down there since the floods except for a night time trip to chase stripers, which was a bust. Who knows what Watts or T&M looks like now. Brightly colored worm and egg patterns should produce...also dont be afraid to throw micro jigs under an indicator as well. Brightly colored buggers or mohair leeches should produce as well. Personally, till the river clears up...I'll go elsewhere.

Is it me or has BSD been having some irregular generation patterns? A couple days ago they generated pretty heavy almost all night and into the day, then during the middle of the day they just shut it off for a couple of hours. Then they fired it back off! I thought they had settled into a pretty consistent summer time pattern of turning it off at night and then bringing it back up throughout the day. Just seems like the generation has been very random.... Maybe this is normal and I have just never paid attention to it this late in the year....

Nice report! September can't come soon enough for our early fall trip. I have hoppers on the brain.

People cringe at the price of Simms products but you get what you pay for. Their customer service is amazing. I sent my G3s in over the winter when I was duck hunting all the time just to be looked over. They tested them for leaks and found a couple of pin holes, which they fixed. I also had a tear in one of my gravel guards that they repaired and added some gussets to both gravel guards to "strengthen" them. They also added some gussets in the crouch area. They said all the gussets were updates that the newer G3s have, I guess? Who knows. They did it all for free though, so I was satisfied. I also spoke with them in the spring about adding a felt lining to the pockets of my older Simms Freestone wading jacket, I got an email back within a few hours stating that they couldnt add the felt lining to my jacket but they would give me a trade in credit for my jacket at full retail price if I bought a new one. I decided to keep my jacket cuz I didnt wanna spend the extra $$$ for a jacket but it was still cool that they offered that. I'm sold...

Streamer fishing rules...nice fish Scudz! Cant wait to get down there in Sept to throw some hoppers during the day and streamers early morning/late evening. Cant believe you didnt have better luck on the hoppers! Did you fish the shady banks with trees hanging over? There are usually fish hanging out there looking ants, beetles, and hoppers...of course, its freaking hot!

Note to self: Don't float the sections of the Upper Illinois River near Watts. This whole story kinda freaks me out. Makes me think twice about wading around in the river now that its a murky mess even though that's a long ways away. We were chest deep in the river, crossing a deep hole, Sunday night chasing stripers. Yeah...freaks me out just a touch.

We hit the river last night around 8:30 with the big rods in search of stripers after hearing reports of people catching them from time to time. Fished till 10:00 with only a few tugs, a couple of snagged gar, and a sucker. It was pretty cool to fish the river at night, brought back memories of Taneycomo night fishing. I had high hopes that we would hook up with some stripers feeding at dusk and just after dark, but nothing. River has changed A LOT in the sections we fished, crazy stuff. A lot deeper in several holes. Cant wait to see how things are once the water clears up. I'm skeptical at how accurate the gauge is on the water temps because we were wet-wading last night and the water was pretty cool. Who knows...

Hoppers, beetles, and ants in different variations are always good to have. I mentioned a couple of hopper patterns in a previous thread that work, Foamulator and Clodhopper. I don't know if u tie but they r very easy to tie. If not, u can find various foam hopper patterns from fly shops and wholesale fly retailers on the net. As low as the river gets in the summer, I would defintely fish dry/dropper if u r gonna throw some big foam flies. Drop a San Juan worm, egg, sowbug, leech pattern or any of ur standard nymphs off the dry fly and u should have pretty good luck. We also have the Cicadas coming off so u might keep some of those in the box this summer. You could also run a double dry rig with a big foam hopper or big stimulator with a small beetle or parachute ant behind it. You could also throw streamers first thing in the morning. Buggers, leeches, zonkers, etc all work good down there. Usually, the streamer bite will cease once the sun gets up but don't hold me to that. They will eat them all day, especially the late evening bite. Ur normal nymph assortment under an indicator will work all summer. Don't rule out fishing a bugger, leech, or big rubber legs with a smaller nymph dropper. We have had good luck with buggers and leeches under an indicator. Honestly, if it's me, I'm fishing streamers in the early mornin and late evening then switching to dry/dropper during the day. I would rather catch 10 trout on a dries than 20 on an indicator rig. But that's just me...

Nice fish! I'm glad someone has got into them. We went out several times and never could get on them. We r switching our efforts to the Lower Illinois for the remainder of the run if we can get time to get over there.

http://ozarkanglers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22842 There is a link to the report from last summer with some pictures.

We estimated by measurements that my fish was around 20lbs. I caught it on a 7 wt but it literally kicked my butt. I went out and bought an 8 wt the following week. There are some TOADS in the Arkansas. U will be glad u had an 8 or 9 wt if u hook into a big striper. All of the bigger fish we caught last year, they all went into the backing. As far as fly sizes, I would take a variety. I have caught them on 2/0 deceivers and #4 clousers.

Yes. Charlie Cravens version. Its way "buggier" than the other versions especially with the rubber legs. It's a freaking sweet fly. I get a kick outta tying and fishing them. Something about chunking big nasty foam bugs really gets me amped up. Especially when a big fish makes it disappear!

Lol! I remember that fish. It came from 6-8 ft away from under a limb to eat the Foamulator. He killed it too! It was an awesome take. Something u might try as well, drop a foam beetle or parachute ant off the back of the hopper and run double dries. I bet it would work on a sunny breezy day...

There is access to the river at the Watts aras, T&M gravel pit area, Marvals, and another lower access below Marvals. There is a sign for the turn off to Watts on the highway that states "Trout Stream". The other access points, u just gotta know the area. Take a look at GoogleEarth and u will figure it out. I can't remember county road #s as of right now.

There USED to be some good water downstream but my buddies fished it over the weekend and all our little "spots" have been washed out or filled in Anxious for the river to clear up so we can really see how much the river has changed.

We have caught them all over the area below Zink. I know guys that catch them way below I-44 bridge too. The river is full of them. Catching them at the right time when they are feeding is the tricky part. Late evening is normally the best but I caught my big fish last year in the middle of the day while they were chasing shad on the surface. Just gotta get out there and hope you are hitting it right. Best thing about below Zink is you never know what you might hook, lots of different species that are fun on the fly rod. There are no stripers in the Lower Illinois anymore...whoever told you that they were there was lying

Look up the Foamulator and the Clodhopper on YouTube. Both are very easy to tie and work great. I tie the foamulator for my big nasty foam fly and to use in a hopper/dropper rig. I usually tie it in sizes #4 to #8. Its what I used last Sept when we went to the Current and fished hopper/dropper all weekend. The clodhopper is SUPER simple to tie and works great as a smaller hopper pattern to fish by itself. Both flies ride very well in the water. Check them out...I think you will like them.

Toad.... Sweet fish! Cant wait to get up there soon!

Last I knew was the gates on the low water dam were broke which was making for some inconsistent flows. We went out a few times to chase stripers and had no luck at all. The constant low water, I think, kept the stripers further downstream. We had great luck last year but this year has sucked. We are hoping that the Lower Illinois will be our saving great for stripers as they have finally cut the generation on Tenkiller Dam. There should be tons of stripers in the river with all the high water they had.

The crew and I made our way over to the Kings River on friday night where we met up with a couple other buddies to do an overnight float on the Kings River. Our plan was to float from Trigger Gap to HWY 62 bridge using my drift boat, Joey's canoe, and Coreys kayak. We launched saturday morning at 7AM and began our 13 mile float to HWY 62. Fishing started off slow on sat. morning but got better as the day went on. We were throwing a variety of crawfish and baitfish patterns throughout the morning before we finally got the fish dialed in. Baitfish patterns seemed to be the key as clousers and other minnow type flies were bringing fish to hand. I had good luck on a dark green/white clouser for the 1st part of the day but, later on, switched to an #6 olive Circus Peanut and drug it across the bottom with good success. We found an awesome gravel bar that evening and set up camp for the evening. We were worried for a while as a storm blew in but never dumped any rain on us. It seems to swirl around us and go to the north, clearing up and making for a great night to camp. We woke up the next morning early to yet another storm trying to blow in on us. We went into panic mode and started tearing camp down. The storm seemed to die off so we took our time taking camp down and loading the boats up. As we finished up, we took some group pictures with the boats before we launched and then, just as we stowed the cameras away, it started to POUR! It rained HARD on us for a good 30 minutes as we floated down river. It started to lightning and thunder as we went so nobody fished which made us pass up some sweet looking water. It finally cleared up and the weather just got better as the day went on. Fishing, once again, started off slow in the morning but soon picked up after the sun came out when the clouds cleared. Once again, baitfish patterns were the go-to flies for the day. The fish were hanging out in the shallow water amongst the chunk rock, chasing baitfish all day, which was pretty cool to watch. For me, when Joey took over on the sticks...I stuck several smallies on the circus peanut once again. It was like fishing a jig on the bottom, just drag it or bounch it along the bottom and the fish would inhale it! Overall, we had a great weekend and float. The fishing was great, nothing big came to the net though. We caught a few around 16" with most of our fish being in the 12-14" range which were a ball on the 5 and 6 weights. We did see several really nice fish but they were super spooky while holding in that shallow water. This was my 1st trip on the Kings and absolutely love this river. It was great fishing....

Nice brown! That thing is a pig. Gotta love it when a big nasty fish like that comes up and eats some foam.

Hoppers rule on the Current in the summer, especially in August and Sept. Can't wait to go back this summer and throw big nasty foam...

Been generating non-stop. High and muddy. Be good for the river though, it'll flush out the system and I bet the river will be in awesome shape going into another hot summer so its not a bad thing really.

Their customer service is great. I own 3 TFOs and have nothing but good experiences with them. If I wasn't a die-hard Scott fan, I would own more TFO fly rods. Scott has great customer service as well on top of their awesome sticks. What's great about TFO is they are out of Texas so turn around time on warranty/repair situations is very fast for us since they are only 1-3 days away. I sent a rod to them on Monday and had it back on Wednesday. Cant beat it...

So far, I've been lucky...most of my buddies want to row so I get to fish but sometimes its hard to get me off the oars I love to row...