9/2 Report

[DoveTail]

I think I had the same idea as the rest of the human hatch today - hit the water before the potential big rains arrive and make things muddy. There are a lot of fish in the water in the fly fishing zones. The bait areas look pretty fished out but some people were still pulling them out. The fish seemed like they were hammered this weekend with a lot of fishing pressure but they were still active and doing surface feeding today. The surface action was not aggressive, more of a come up and sip it, maybe look at it. When one it, they usually did with an aggressive strike. Lots of looks and missed strikes.

I probably did not catch more than 2 or 3 on the same fly then would have to change it up. All the action I had were on dry flies with the exception of a few fish early on small green jigs.

Arrived very early, so the stream was void of the human hatch but as the siren approached, they did also.

There are some big fish in the stream. The old stock from the hatchery is being released into the park (not sure how many fish each Friday, but they are releasing all of the older 400 big fish into "retirement" in the park as the younger stock will take over the hatchery program). Some of those fish are pigs, the hatchery gentleman told me some are 14 pounds.

The flies were small. Today, unless it was small, they would not even look at it. No luck on any egg patterns or San Juan worms (tried every color and style), PT, jigs later in the day (with the exception of the couple from the early morning), hare's ear (BH and regular), Prince nymph, soft hackles, plus every other wet pattern I had.

On the dries, if it was small, including hoppers, there were a lot of takes. I caught a mayfly that looked tiny compared to a #20 dry hook. Black body. I was able to hook a few on a dry caddis #12, smaller elk hair in an 18. A madam X in a #14 also worked. Today, it seemed dry was the ticket.

The rainbows are getting some color. There were a few browns swimming around but did not catch any.

[hfdhoosier]

Thanks for the post. sounds like they were being pretty picky. The wife and I are headed down this weekendwith a few friends, could get washed out. I hope its still fishable.

[Don]

I've seen a few meathunters nab a few bigguns out of there. I guess it's their right because it's their fish. I hope some of you guys who get a hog remember to measure, get several pics, and catch and release. They don't taste good enough to kill.

Don May

[hfdhoosier]

Amen! Trophy fish are meant to be caught more than once. But they probably won't last long at Montauk, especially with Rose Holland tournament coming up in October.

[flyfishmaster]

Good report Dovetail, thanks for the update on the big fish.

You are so correct Don, I don't keep trout over 3 lbs because I think the quality of the meat goes downhill. I caught a 6+ lbs fish at BSSP 6 years ago, and it only took 30 seconds to land so when I went to release it, the thing went belly up so I kept it. I took it up to get weighed, then cleaned it (this all happened it a 10 minute time span). When skinned it the meat was mushy, so I ended up cutting it up and let the other trout have a feeding frenzy. That was sad.

Later,

FFM