Weekend Fishing Report

[Project Healing Waters]

I took 2 wounded soldiers in our PHWFF program from Fort Leonard Wood down to the Sowbug last weekend and we stayed at www.taylormaderivertreks.com on the NFOW. We fished Saturday morning and all day Sunday. Saturday morning, we only had about 1.5 hours to fish in the morning. We waded in at the Patrick Bridge access. Neither of these guys had wet a fly line before. We had tied up a bunch of heavy brown stone fly nymphs with rubber legs.

I didn't rig up a rod, but just played coach. The flow rate was about 900 cfs and I knew it would be tricky wading and tough fishing. Both guys caught fish. The big fish was an 18" Brown that weighed about 2 lbs. That was one of the duo's first trout and first fish on a fly rod. The other caught a nice Rainbow...also his first fish on a fly rod.

We rigged 12-13' of 3X leader + 4X fluoro tippet, a couple of #4 split shots about 18" above the fly, and about 7-9' up the leader we put on the indicator. Tough rig to cast for beginners, but they did great.

One of the guys lost his right knee to an IED blast in Iraq. He's the one who caught the big Brown. Thus, the topic description.

Sunday, we floated the lower float from Blair to the Taylor's with Shawn Taylor. We all caught fish. Jose again caught the big fish o the day, but this one was a Rainbow. I LOST the big fish o the day...maybe the decade...but that doesn't really count now does it? Again Sunday the size 8 brown stone fly nymph with rubber legs was the ticket. Great day.

For photos and more in depth coverage see my blog posts from the weekend at: http://ozarksflyanglers.blogspot.com

[flyfishmaster]

Great post. These guy will remember that day forever now.

Later,

FFM

[Mark]

Congratulations to you for such a noble endevour. Irregardless of each of our political positons, we owe our servicemen and servicewomen a tremendous gratitude. Thank you for your kindness.

[Brian Wise]

Nice!

Glad you guys did well.

Stones with Rubber Legs.....

Brian

[duckydoty]

Fish On _______

Great report Ken

duckydoty

[hfdhoosier]

Thats a great service you provide to our deserving wounded servicemen. Both of you are heroes.

Great post.

[Project Healing Waters]

Yep! You said it, Matt Taylor said it, and his dad said it. So I figured it might work. So we tied up a bunch of size 8 dark brown nymphs and put the tail, legs, and antennae on them in brown sili-legs. Worked like a champ if you could get them to the bottom. I hooked briefly with two BIG Browns while floating fast water. The first was a true Leviathan that took a big rusty brown streamer. The other took the stone nymph dead drifted at the tail of a deep, fast riffle. I have no idea how I lost the first one. But the second one came up and did a barrel roll on me in the fast water and slipped the hook before I could relax the tension. So stripping streamers over the top of the big rocks on high water could be productive too.

[Wheatenheimer]

What an incredibly inspiring report!!! I am so proud to be associated with the people of this forum and especially proud of you!!! Anytime you see a uniformed soldier, shake their hand and thank them for what they have done. It doesn't matter what your thoughts are on war, politics or our society, these fine Americans have put themselves in harms way for all of us. They need to know that we appreciate them. Thank you so much for posting this!!!

Kevin