Spring River Fishing Sept. 26-30

[jdmidwest]

Left out last Friday for a 3 day weekend. First stop was to be 11 pt for some wade fishing. I took my time going down, shopping at Crappie Co. and a few flea markets on the way. Stopped at Flossies Apple Barrel restaurant in Winona for lunch. Great little place, good food. Funny how the name Palin was on the locals minds there.

On to 11 pt to find it still up and a little off color and I choose not to wade it. 11 pt is better from a boat unless the river is running low and clear. It had been a while since I had wade/flyfished the Spring River, so on down the road I went.

I arrived at Lasseters access and geared up. There were about 6 others fishing. I entered at the ramp and worked my way down a little. I begin hooking up with stockers right away. The third fish was a nice 14" Cutbow or something. It was rainbow colored but it had the bright orange slashes under the jaws. I had turned a nice fish in this area on previous casts so I was holding fast. Everyone else was tossing hardware or bait, and I was catching the most fish. I hooked up on a nice one the next time, 21" and about 4 lbs. Its the one in the pic. I kept on for a while and kept a few for supper then left out for camp at Riverside. Probably landed about 15 total.

Sat. morning, I drove back up to Lasseters and fished for a while. I walked up a little and fished one hole till the sun came up and was glaring in my eyes. I had left sunglasses at home so I was having trouble keeping track of the indicator. I did manage to land 10 or so stockers and another big male rainbow of 3 lbs.

Friends rolled in about noon and we floated from Dam 3 to Riverside. Nothing special, mainly stockers. River was cloudy and full of trash. No warmwater fish this time, even though I was targeting Smallies, Walleyes, and goggle eye most of the day on Sat.

Sat. night was the worst night I have ever spent in a campground. I was camped in a field back away from the river. A large church group with mainly young teenage girls was camped along the river. Around midnight, a group of boys from another camp decided to play with the girls going back and forth to the bathroom. It started off with bird calls from the boys scattered out in the field around my tent. At one time the boys gathered around my tent and I told them thru my tent to go play somewhere else. Around 1:30 and 2:30 I was wakened by a bright spotlight shined into my tent lighting it up like daylight, waking me out of a slightly drunken sleep. At 2:30, they made the mistake of using the spotlight at their cabin. When the lights came on at 3:30 and one of them spit on my tent, I yelled "I know where you camp". I grabbed a stick of firewood, jumped in the truck, and parked outside of their cabin with my headlights shining on the cabin for about 10 minutes while I knocked on the door with the stick. Amazingly, things were calm after that and I managed a little sleep.

Sunday we floated the same float and had about the same results. By the time we made it to the Bayou Access, I was tired and not wanting to drive back. I decided to stay the night and take Mon. off too.

Monday, I awoke, saw my buddies off and had the camp to myself almost. I walked above the waterfall and proceeded to catch about 25 fish there. I walked up to the Bayou Access and fished the riffle there, but did not catch any fish. I packed up camp and stopped in Mammoth for lunch. After lunch, I drove down to Lasseters. I walked past a guy on a cell phone and entered the hole I fished Friday. I caught 5 stockers pretty fast and then I stuck another big male rainbow. I had him in the net walking to the bank to show the guy on the cell phone. He stated he had been there since Sun and just told his wife that there was not any fish in the river. I went back out and caught several more, then drove home.

All fish were caught on the Snail Pattern. All fish killed for supper Friday night were filled with snails from the gut thru the intestines.

By the way, it was a beautiful fall weekend. I really wanted to go to the conclave this weekend, but it did not work out.

[Fletch]

What snail pattern were you using?

[jdmidwest]

Its a black beadhead pattern with a krystal flash tail.