Water Condtions At Roaring River Park

[timsfly]

Water is still high, not so muddy anymore but still murky, it is clearing a bit everyday and should be pretty good in a couple more weeks.

Fishing has been good even with the off colored water, it has been tough on the fly fishers, but not impossible, bead heads, san juan worms, thread jigs, micro jigs, glo-balls and brassies fished under and indicator have been catching a few fish, in the fast water, you need more weight and if you add more weight you will need a bigger float, sometimes it is better to take the float off and watch the end of your line. I talked to a few guys catching trout on zebra midges and small caddis flies, but only in a few areas were they able to fish small flies, you had to hunt the eddies and find slower places along the river to fish. You can still get away with 6X fluorocarbon tippet, and if you are fishing heaiver cone and bead head buggers and sculpins you can use the 5X or heaiver. I'm fishing most of my flies 3' or deeper and I'm fishing droppers most of the time, a zebra midge, san juan worm combo has been working pretty good, I caught one this evening up by the hatchery on a crackleback, so a few are still looking up, the water is a bit clearer on the upper end.

Power eggs and power worms are still catching a lot of trout, the cheese yellow, orange, chartruse and the orange peel are doing the best in the worms, in the eggs the flo. yellow, flo. ornage, white and the hatch brown are working best. You need a lot of weight right now to keep an egg anchored on the bottom, a 1/8th bell sinker or worm weight is needed in most of the holes right now.

Marabou jigs are good right now, you just have to use the bigger heads, or add sinkers to your smaller jigs, I'm using jigs as large as 1/8th of an ounce right now.

Roostertails, little cleos, super dupers, rebel crawdads, rapala minnows and about any litte deep diver plug 3" and smaller can be used right now, the fish seem to like the bigger plugs when the water is running high, I think they can find them eaiser.

In zone 3 nightcrawlers and corn have been working well. Minnows are good but you'll have to catch them yourselves, bring a seine and go below the park and catch you a mess of minnows and try them out. Don't seine minnows in the park, I think it is against the rules.

Good luck.

[mbgrulz]

Probably gonna try it out next Saturday. Do you think it will be okay by then?

[timsfly]

The river will be in better shape in 5 days or so(by saturday) but it will still be high, and most likly still be off color.

It can clear very quicly, and if it does, I'll post ASAP.

[WebFreeman]

Any updates, Tim? We're headed down tomorrow.

[timsfly]

It is about the same, still off colored and still high, it is fishable. use extra lead

[Hooksetter]

Looking to make a trip on Friday. If this rain comes in how much rain needs to come to make it unfishable? I will be traveling some distance, so I would sure appreciate all the info I can get.

[timsfly]

It would take over an inch and it would have to come real fast to make much difference. If it is a slow easy rain we could probably do 2" before there is much change to the river.

A lot of it depends on where the rain falls, if the washburn area gets pounded then dry hollow comes to life, and it can flood the bottom end(zone 2 and 3) and the top end will remain unchanged, but if the rain comes above roaring river between cassville and the park, then the upper hollers flood and it can ruin the whole river for a few days.

[Hooksetter]

Has the report changed since the 23rd's post?

Thanks for the speedy reply.

[timsfly]

Has the report changed since the 23rd's post?

Thanks for the speedy reply

No not really it is about the same as it was on the 23rd, it is not quite as high, but still off colored.

[mbgrulz]

i'm hoping the rain will hold off for the most part, and it will continue to improve the next couple of days. i'm still shooting for a Saturday outing.