fishing Report

[Jeremy Hunt]

Febuary 24th 2006

Finally went fishing at Taneycomo for the first time in a while. I went with Levi from my tying class. He is kind of new to the sport so I figured I would get him out there and do some exploring. I didn’t really know what to do though because it seems like forever that I was down there. I kind of felt like I was on a different stretch of water because of how long it’s been that I fished up at the dam.

We started fishing around 1pm at the public boat ramp. I took my pontoon boat so I could row around and scope out and see if I could spot any big fish. My buddy didn’t have one so he had to wade. He adjusted well to the conditions we had considering the wind along with the 15mph gust that came throughout the day. I thought he might have some problems with that, but he did well casting in the wind. Once we got situated out in the current we started fishing dries. Something about the wind chop told me that big dries were going to do the trick. I tied Levi on a size twelve crackleback with an orange underbody. The hackle was brown (furnace) and it was tied with the hackle being a few more turns than the normal ones you see. I really wanted mine to site hi on the water because of the windy conditions we had I didn’t want to take the chance trying to locate my fly all day in the chop. Once you lose it, it is sometimes hard to relocate it after the cast. So I didn’t want to recast all day trying to find the fly again on the next cast. I’m sure this happens to people who fish dries. It can be frustrating too. I tied on a BIG dry. It is one that use on the White River when I’m fishing the fast riffles down in the trophy area at Rim Shoals. It’s kind of fun to test things that you wouldn’t think about fishing in the winter that you normally only fish in the summer and it actually produces some fish. I knew I could see it and that was the key for me. Trying to use the wind chop to my advantage and see if I can make the fly dance. Levi was catching fish on all the flies I gave him to use. He first started fishing the crackleback as a dry and wasn’t hooking up at all. Then I told him next time he cast to sink the fly to get it wet and start striping it fast. When he started doing that he was hooking up with some rainbows. I think the reason why it didn’t work in the stretch of water we were fishing because the current was to fast in the center on the river. When I saw him doing well then I went ahead and fished the banks with mine. I knew that if I wanted the trout to see it I had to get in some calmer water if I had any chance fishing it as a dry, but still wanted it to have some chop. I was trying to find some overhanging tree’s with some structure to the water I was fishing. I caught a lot of fish today considering the conditions we had to face. There is one fish I caught that will always be a memory. I caught a rainbow that was probably close to 20 inches and the take is one of those ones that you will always remember. That fish didn’t just sip it and go down slow. It almost came out of the water. I thought it was cool for being my first time out in a while.

We did try to fish some other flies, but we keep going back to the dry fly bite. Levi was throwing about a size 16 gold bead head with some olive dubbing for the body and he ties a little strand of marabou for the tail to match the body. I never fish olive because I just don’t have to much luck with it, but after seeing Levi fishing it I might have to start. I fished a brown San Juan tied on a straight shank hook in a size 16 TMC 3769. Throwing a number eight split shot about twelve inches away from the fly. My indicator was probably five feet away from the split. He water I was normally fishing in was about three to five feet. The fish were holding in the deeper water it seems like until the wind laid down closer to dark. Then they were midging like crazy. I started fishing the shallows with a size 20 zebra midge in black with a copper bead and Levi threw a RS2 that we tied in class this week. All in all we had luck on most of everything we did today. People were catching fish as well so I would say it was a good day for everybody.

[Danoinark]

Jeremy, good to see you again. I will check out your class one of these days.

Dano