Skunked At Tan Vat And Baptist

[jah]

Hey guys, I need help! I was skunked on Saturday for the very first time at Tan Vat and Baptist. I have been to Tan Vat numerous times, and it seems each time I get worse. My wife was also skunked for the first time. I know the water was up, but doesn't that make the fish less spooky? Anyway, here's what we used---she exclusively used a pink globall dropped below a red san juan worm. I rigged hers so she was fishing deep....nothing!

I used a variety of things. Primrose and pearl midges, prince nymphs, globalls (pink), a large dry caddis that was given to me at Hargroves and I dropped a soft hackle off of that. I was also fishing deep with my nymphs.

I'm at a loss. I want my wife to continue her interest in fly fishing, but when she gets skunked, it doesn't help. I'm open to any and all advice. Thanks!

Jim

[Nortrad]

Did you read the other post from Brownieman? Some do well in the high water. I've had mixed results. I used a sink tip during high water, slightly off color, with some success. The weather was cooperative for me, warming up. I've also fished with high water and unsettled weather to not much success. In both cases fishing was off. It seems only a few have mastered the high water. I used big streamers on the first time mentioned, and heavy, weighted stonefly nymph w. glo bug dropper on the second time. Did you fish the slack water, out of the main, fast flows? It's tough fishing anyway you try it. Of course I've read guys who throw big lures do well.

[Al Agnew]

How much weight were you using? I've found that a lot of guys just don't use enough lead to get the flies down in high, fast water. Two BB split shot is about the minimum I use nymphing in the high water levels, unless I'm in pretty slow water.

I've been meaning to write up a report of my trip last week on the Current, and other places. My fly fishing buddy from Montana was visiting, and he and I and my best MO fly fishing buddy fished the Current last Friday, the 16th. That was just after all the rain we had earlier in the week, and it was a cold, cloudy day. Tom from MO, call him Tom M, started out with nymphs in the first run up from Tan Vat, the one with the tree in the water, and caught 8 nice trout right away, including a 17 inch brown. Tom from MT (Tom C) and I started out with streamers and I caught only one small brown. When we got to fishing nymphs we started catching fish. I was using a Prince nymph take-off I'd found out in MT that had tan instead of white wings and a tannish body with CDC...no idea what it was called. But it was working. Tom M, after the 8 trout right off, never caught another fish all day, but Tom C and I caught fish steadily and ended up with probaby 35 fish between us. Tom C had a beautifully colored, sleek 20 inch brown, and I hooked and lost two big fish right at my feet, one a rainbow, the other a brown, and both in the 18-20 inch class. We were catching them all in pretty fast water, and using lots of weight with a strike indicator above the weight about 4-6 feet. You want the indicator to be moving a little faster than the flies on the drift. You hang up a lot with that much weight, but at least you know the flies are down there. Fast water trout in high water seem to really hug the bottom behind little obstructions and depressions that partially block the strength of the current.

[Gavin]

I'd agree with Al...you probably werent using enough weight....Two BB's..three or four or five sometimes...whatever it takes to keep them on the bottom. A straight leader helps too...tapered leaders sink a lot slower...so I only use those for dries...Indicators work sometimes, but I often do better w/o one...Make a long upstream tuck cast to get em on the bottom quickly, then strip in enough line as it drifts back to you in order to maintain contact with the flies. If you are doing it right you should feel the shot ticking bottom, and the take.

The fish often hold in different places at high water too...eddies, inside current seams, and even long slower stretches often fish better than really fast water. The fish are in there, its just a matter of getting your fly to em. Cheers.

[Nortrad]

Now I feel very inadequate...we fished that day also. Guess we needed more weight also, cuz we were throwing nymphs too. Our flies were probably zooming right over the trout's heads. Read and learn...once again from Gavin and Al.

[jah]

Thanks for the replies. I was definitely not using enough weight. I had only 1 split shot on each rig. I was thinking the weight of the egg pattern coupled with the one piece of split would make it sink fast enough. I was oobviously wrong.

With so much weight, it's more like 'lobbing' than technical casting, right? I'm also not good enough to fish without an indicator yet. I feel as if I would miss too many fish.

Also, below the first hole at Tan Vat (the one with the tree), there are long stretches of water (runs). Are there fish to be caught in that water that is only 3 feet or so? There's a lot of this water upstream from Baptist I notices.

[Nortrad]

Below Tan Vat is good, the run w. the log running parallel, south bank; farther down where it's a short, fast riffle, then deep, and, past that one, along the rocks/trees on north bank, and... There's a lot of good water, but as we are learning, it takes the right choice, method, and presentation to hook up. Still learning...

[Snow Fly]

JAH:

Don't worry about it! Sure not the first time someone will be skunked nor the last. I remember a few years ago myself and two friends were fishing the Current, one guy an extremely good fly man, we all three were skunked. Man I thought about the 0 for a week ........................also ran into three others I know as good fly men and they had 1 fish between them..........the conditions were extremely low water, cleeeeeear water, and bright sun, tough conditions. It brings you back to earth about the sport and the old saying "It's why it's called FISHING not Catching"

[Al Agnew]

If you wade up or down from Tan Vat in very low, clear water with good light, and really watch for fish, you'll find fish just about everywhere that's more than a foot deep and has some current. So yeah, there are probably fish in the places you're talking about. In lower water levels, the lower parts of the riffles, where the water drops off a bit and gets 18-30 inches deep but is still riffly choppy water, is usually where the actively feeding fish are. I especially like the sudden drop-offs from water that's just a few inches deep into water that's 18 inches or more. Cast a pair of nymphs with decent weight well up onto the shallows, keep your rod tip up and "work" them along the bottom until you get to the drop-off, and let them sink right over the lip of the drop. Somewhere in the next two feet of drift there are usually fish. Basically, in lower water levels, if nymphing I concentrate on water that's fast enough to have a chop on the surface.

But in higher water like the last couple of weeks, the fish seem to relate more to current areas that have slowed just enough to get smoother on the surface. With the stronger flow, such water probably has about the same current speed as the choppy riffle water during the lower flows. Current seams--the boundary between much slower water and the fast, choppy water at the base of curving riffles--become much more likely to hold fish than the choppy water itself.

The big rainbow I hooked last week was in that smoother surface current well below an actual riffle, about three feet deep. The brown was up in the rock garden above Tan Vat in a smooth tongue of current between two big rocks.

If the fish are looking up, I like fishing dry fly and dropper in the long, flat stretches both above and below Tan Vat. But in low light and/or off-color water, I'll usually opt to fish such stretches with streamers unless there is a good hatch. That didn't work last week, though...I fished all the way up the long flats above Tan Vat with just the one little brown about 10 inches.

And yes, fishing nymphs with a lot of weight is more chuck and duck than classic casting. But if you aren't fishing a lot of line, and fishing cross-stream drifts (45 degree angle upstream cast, drift past your position to 45 degrees downstream and let it swing to where it's almost straight below you--fish often take it on the swing) you can get into a rhythm where you simply lift the line and weight off the water at the end of the swing and flip it out in front of you to land 45 degrees upstream again...you can just shorten or lengthen your line to make the next drift through a different lane. No false casting. In high off-colored water, you can work close to the fish if you're quiet. I also like Gavin's technique if the water and your casting position lends itself to it.

[joeD]

jah- I feel your pain. I fished ALL day Monday the 19th and from 8-12 Tuesday the 20th. Tan Vat up and Ashley Creek up to Baptist. Probably my least productive days on the Current. Ever. Now granted, I was very specific and unvarying in what I was throwing, because I wanted a "big bite", a big brown ( 4+ pounds). I threw big jerkbaits spin fishing, and big streamers fly-fishing (Sex Dungeons, e.g.). I'm sure that's why I didn't catch fish, they didn't want it, and I didn't want to change (or "adjust"). Even so, I usually come up with something. I hardly saw any fish, let alone have many chase my offerings. There were other fly fisherman on the water, and they were just as flummoxed as I was (nymphs, cracklebacks, buggers, EHC, etc). On Tuesday I saw a number of browns paired up, so they could be spawning. There was a monstrous caddis hatch both days, but I did not see ONE rise or any surface or sub-surface activity. I caught a 2 1/2 pound rainbow and a 3 pound brown (about 20 inches). That's it. I know I could have been working or some other drudgery, but still...

Ahh, the Current...she can be a fickle mistress...