Report, 5/15 - 5/16

[OKFlyFisher44]

5/15

Some buddies decided to brave the rainy forecast to go chase stripers on the river this past weekend. Keystone Dam was scheduled to be off all weekend so we had high hopes for good fishing. The flows were still pretty high at Zink to start the morning off so we decided to try out a new spot and drove up to Swift Park below the dam. We geared up and began to make the trek downstream to fish some rocky points that looked to have some shallower water.

We threw clousers, deceivers, and even poppers but none of us got a bite. Just too much water to cover....it'd be awesome to fish from a boat just so you could cover some water way faster! There looked to be soem awesome holes further down river but we decided against walking further down. It was forecasted to start raining around 1:00pm and the water was dropping at Zink so we loaded up and headed for hopefully more productive waters.

We put in at Zink and started fishing the hole where Donny and I caught our stripers a couple weeks ago. Chris and I started with deceivers on a sink tip while Joey and Cole was throwing clousers. We dredged the depths with only a couple sand bass and drum to hand. It was a disappointing start. We continued walking upstream fishing every hole and flat that looked promising. Joey caught a few more drum along the way, one of them being in the 5-6lb range. He thought he had a striper on the way it was fighting....it was a let down.

We finished up by the dam with only Cole sticking a decent hybrid and Chris catching a blue cat, which was pretty cool to see. We packed it in...with plans to come back tomorrow morning.

5/16

The next morning I met up with Donny and Chris at Zink once again. The river had bottomed out at 50cfs, overcast skies, and no wind....I was crossing my fingers for good fishing. We headed down again to the hole where we'd got into the stripers a couple weeks ago. It didn't take long and Chris was hooked up! He brought a solid FAT striper to hand, his 1st on a fly rod. He was excited. Not 5 minutes later, he was hooked up again on a striper but the fish threw the fly early in the fight. We thought we had found the stripers...but we were wrong.

Chris and I managed to catch a couple of catfish (a blue and a channel) on our deceivers and that was it for the hole. We fished a few other spots before heading up to the dam on the east side. We got into some sandbass and a few drum before I hooked up with something that almost put me into my backing. I cranked the drag down and it still peeled line off the reel. I brought it in close and it swirled on the surface, revealing itself. It was a nice hybrid! These fish fight like crazy...they just wear themselves out. It was the fish of the day for me....

A few minutes later, Chris walked up with his rod in his hand....broken! So that ended the day for us....

I'm guessing the crappy weather over the past week has pushed the stripers back downstream, hopefully they come back when we get some warm weather. Surely they haven't already spawned out? Who knows....still trying to get these fish dialed in...

[OKFlyFisher44]

Some pictures from the weekend...