8/15-8/16 Report

[OKFlyFisher44]

Took a weekend with some family to come down to Branson so while we were there, as always, I squeezed in some fishing since the weather was going to be nice. Couldn't of asked for nicer weather all weekend, it was almost chilly down on the water early in the mornings especially after you've been standing in the water for some time.

Got down to the dam around 6:30 saturday morning along with the rest of the tourist population of Branson. I walked downstream and started at one of my favorite spots, the small run below the large downed tree. Started off with a sculpin pattern, swinging it out and stripping it back. Nothing. Went to a san juan worm w/ a scud dropper. Got 1 fish to hand. Switched to a beadhead scud w/ a red zebra midge dropper. Got 2 fish to hand. Fishing was SLOW...that was the only 3 strikes that I got too. I was a little perplexed. I thought with the cooler weather and the over-cast skies, fishing would be excellent.

I moved downstream to the Big Hole and combed the waters with not even a half-hearted twitch of my indicator. During this time I started noticing the trout had kicked into feeding on something either on top or just below the surface. I watched for sometime and grabbed a couple bugs out of the air. Compared them to a couple of dries, switched to 7X, and tied on. I got a couple of rises outta fish but they just turned into LDRs. At that point, I had to get back to the cabin to go to lunch with the family and the wife wanted to shop.

Got down to the dam at 6:00 sunday morning to an almost empty parking lot so I was excited about that. Geared up and walked down to the Big Hole again to find the fish feeding again. Back to the drawing board again, but I figured they must be feeding sub-surface. Tied on a crackleback and it was game on after that! Had a great time fishing the rest of the morning. The fish would take the fly on a dead-drift off the surface or stripping it back to me after it'd swung out. Lots of fun. Had a bunch of hook-ups and LDRs but still managed to bring 15 fish to hand with a nice 18" 'bow and a fat 16" brown being the nicest fish of the morning. My nephew and cousin joined me around 8:30 and I got them rigged up with cracklebacks and they got into some fish as well. We had a good time...

It was a good time fishing a different pattern on Taney...

Sorry no pictures, the wife had the camera the entire time...

[tippett7]

Any particular size or color? Did you use any weight at all? Sometimes I put a tiny weight just above the crackle back to get it just under the surface?

[OKFlyFisher44]

Yellow or Green in size 14-16 is what worked for us. No weight. I even would put the fly in the dry-shake after I caught a fish so it'd float high when dead-drifted but just under surface when stripped. Worked very well...