Late Weekend Report

[Kyle]

Randall and I fished Friday evening, Saturday all day and Sunday morning. We just wade fished Friday night and caught 12 or so. I hooked into a really nice one for a second, he just shook his head and broke me off then proceeded to jump (twice) to show us how big he was. (21+ inches, the first one that got away). Got on the river at daylight Sat. Started in the same hole as the night before. Hooked into another really nice one (18 + inches). He hit, I set the hook, he jumped and rocketed down stream (all the way into my backing on the first run), he allowed me to play him for awhile before shaking me off. (That is how it goes some times i guess). We floated on down from Kelly's Ford and fished holes the rest of the day and took out at Blair. Over all I would say we caught 30+ fish that day and Randall caught two smallies, one pretty nice one. Not too bad for a first and second timer to the NFOW. Sunday we floated Blair to Riverside Campground (where we stayed). Caught a few 10 or so and one pretty nice brown between us. NFOW is a beautiful river and the fish are plentiful. I am now counting the days until I can go back.

[Outside Bend]

Good stuff, I've been wondering how it's fishing.

[sean c]

Kyle,

Thats a really sweet catch rate for anyone there much less a first and second timer congrats on the great trip. I am always counting the days until I can get back to the NFOW. Thanks for the report.

Sean

[Chris Gates]

Glad to hear you had a good day. That river is sweet!

[Brian Wise]

That is a pretty nice smallmouth....kind of a funky place to catch one that far down the riffle at Kelly though, smallies are always a cool suprise! Let me guess, you caught some numbers of fish in that tailout directly to his right in that photo? Just guessing... :-)

Well done fellas!

Brian

[Kyle]

Thanks Brian,

We did catch a few out of there, but it was definitely not our best hole of the day.

We pretty much only caught fish out of the tailouts. Do you have any suggestions on how to fish the flat water. I am sure it holds some fish, if not as many as the tailouts?

The falls were pretty neat, but not exactly what I was expecting. (thought they might be a little bigger)

You are blessed to be able to fish that river on a daily basis. It is a beautiful place and I would imaging during the week very peaceful.

Kyle

[Brian Wise]

Sounds like you threw together a good trip to the NFOW....a lot of people will fish the "fishy"(by fishy I mean the fast hard riffle water)water and if they don't catch anything they really, really struggle. You hit it on the head, we have been catching most of the fish in the tailouts for probably a month now. The flat water usually catches us a couple of fish per trip but unless you are with a buddy in a canoe, or in a drift boat it isn't worth the time to wade it. There are always exceptions though, if that flat water has structure it becomes fishable immediately...and by structure I mean any kind of fish attracting "stuff" ledges, deep water, limestone cuts, drop-offs, etc. Most of this stuff is all but impossible to wade and fish effectively and if you were to actually fish them hard it would take you 8 hours to fish a mile of water---but you can fish it from a boat as you are floating to the next real fishing spot and catch fish in between the better water.

I would say pat yourself on the back because that is a whale of a day of fishing for NFOW first-timers!

Brian

[Randall]

We didn't fish the flatter stuff real hard, just kinda drifted through it with the current like you said. That might have picked us up 2 or 3 over the day-and-a-half.

We definitely saw one brown that would have gone over 8 pounds and one or two more in the 5-7 pound range all in the really deep spots. I would have loved to pound the banks in a bunch of places but a canoe is not the best platform for that kind of fishing unless you've got a golden shoulder.

I know we'll float this river again, for sure in the fall, possibly again this summer.

We certainly appreciated the input from everybody too.