BDS Report _ June 15

[Guest flyfishBDS]

BEAVER DAM STORE REPORT

JUNE 16, 2006

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G'day y'all from the Beaver Dam Store crew!

This weekend is shaping as a pretty decent fishing weekend, as long as you don't mind a little rain. But the grey skies, cloud cover should be fund to fish. If your really keen, work on floating the river during generation and throw some big streams, you could find this is a great way to hit a big brown.

We have has some conventional tackle reports of browns being targetted this way in the past few weeks. Call in and we can fill you in on the flies and gear to use.

This week we have a yarn about terrestrials on Ozark streams, and some easy ways to make some very cool terrestrial flies, give you a look at just some of the new fly patterns we are stocking our fly bin with and of course the fly fishing report.

TERRESTRIAL TIME

Summer fly fishing in the Ozarks means escaping the heat in the soothing cool of the White River, lazy evenings and misty mornings. Swinging soft hackles at dawn and big streamers, or a mouse on warm evenings. Bass bugs on the lakes and crawdads in the streams. And hopper, beetles and ants eveywhere.

Tossing terrestrials is one of our favorite activities during the summer months. If your not familiar with the term terrestrials are all those normally land based bugs which end up in the water. The wider family can include leafhoppers, crickets, cicadas, inchworms but the most common varieties around these parts are ants, beetles and hoppers. Fish love them all and can provide some of the best dry fly fishing of the year.

Warm windy afternoons are usually pretty good for this type of fishing. Lots of bugs blown out of the trees, bushes and grass along the banks. Look underneath and downstream of overhanging trees (there are a couple of obvious ones in Beaver). Often the most likely area to start looking for terrestrial feeders is the windward bank. But taller trees, higher winds can have the food landing further out from the bank. And don't forget the lee shore. After a couple of hours of wind the breeze will have pushed a nice supply of bugs over to the far bank, where you will often find a trout or two slurping down the feast.

Usually generation kills off any thoughts of dry flies on Ozark tailwaters, but not when bigger terrestrials are out. Tossing hoppers or ants into decent sized eddies and back waters, can be lethal at times. Risers are easier to see in the smooth flat parts of the eddy but look hard at the seams where the eddy and the main brush rub shoulders. Taneycomo, Bull Shoals and Beaver have several of these types of locations, where risers seems to almost feed at will.

Some of our favorite terrestrial patterns:

Hoppers: Club Sandwich, Dave's Hopper (from the Southern master Dave Whitlock), Charlie Boy Hoppers.

Ants: Schroeder's Parachute Ant.

Beetles: Lawson's Foam Beetle, Renegade, Red Tag (ask Steve about this easy tie Aussie standard), Hi-Vis Foam Beetle.

General Attractors: Stimulator (ok its a stonefly but it works); Chernobyl Ant; Turks Tarantula.

Don't forget most of the foam patterns above can slay panfish, smallmouth and even largemouth as well

Foam Terrestrial Kits

Wapsi's Razor Foam Midge kit was a winner this past winter, giving every fly tyer an easy way to tie up some very alluring midge emergers. Since we love fishing foam terrestrials so much we have brought in three geat new kits for tying these flies. Each contains more than enough materials, including hooks for 24 flies and step by step instructions.

Choose between:

Chernobyl Ant Kit (great for those backwater feeders we mentioned above)

Ant and Beetle Kit (for all those funky foam cylinder patterns)

Foam Spider Kit (designed for panfish but don't forget trout love rubber legged terrestrials too)

These kits are great value at $7.99 too

NEW FLIES

Whitlock's Mouserat: Let''s go Mousing for big big trout on the tailwaters. Trim the weedguard, splat it down close to grassy banks on some darks night then pull it smoothly across a plat pool. Hold on!!

New Colors in this hot midge pattern. We have had great success with both the black and brown (motor oil) patterns and couldn't resist adding some new colors. The olive looks lethal and the red should be hot as well.

John "Copper John" Barr is a fish predator pure and simple and his flies work. Check out our tan and brown Pure midges, fish them as a trailer behind a scud or sowbug or under a teeny indicator for those picky feeders.

TURN YOUR HAPPY SNAPS INTO WALL-HANGER

How many of you opened up your treasured prints, or digital images, of a trophy trout only to be disappointed at the result? The fish looks tiny, your face is all black, or just lacking that "magazine quality". Well come along to our free Fly Fishing Photography seminar on June 25 at 2pm and discover some of the simple tricks the pros use.

Hosted by our own resident fly fishing photo-journalist Steve Dally, the seminar is not going to be full of "f-stop" technicalities nor recommendations for thousands of dollars in gear. The seminar will illustrate practical tips for using every day film and digital cameras _ even your point and shoot pics can turn out better with this advice. Simple tips, like learning how to hold a fish, can make all the difference.

Steve had 14 years working with some great professional photographers back in his newspaper days, but for the six he had to start taking magazine quality pics himself. If you have ever seen a copy of Flylife, where Steve is a columnist and regular contributor you will . This seminar probably won't get your pictures published but it will help you turn out pictures worth framing for home or the office. No equipment is necessary.

This will be one of several FREE seminars we are planning over the next few months so keep abreast of developments through this email.

FISHING REPORT

Beaver Tailwater: Midday fishing remains tricky on the tailwater with some very spooky fish. So get out of bed or stay out late And by early we mean really early. Its light enough to fish from about 5.30am. The mist will usually be thick enough to make deas drifting small midge emergers or even small indicators somewhat of a pain, your drifts get shortened up by the sheer lack of visibility. So our favorite tactic for the very early period is either soft hackles swung across the current or woolly buggers stripped or swung. And swung or stripped slowly _ often the best pace is merely to hold your line tight. Srteve went out to test drive some new patterns on Wednesday and finished off with three rainbows landed, two lost off five casts of his Green and Yellow Cooee Soft Hackle.

By the time the mist burns off and the sun hits the water the fish are heading deep. Copper-ribbed zebra midges are very good, as are Bryce's TDM, regular zebras and the Blue Poison Tung. Y2Ks and Woolly Buggers can also produce some fish. But generally the middle of the day is going to be hard work.

Hot windy days are also bringing out ants and beetles into the trees (and we should be seeing some early hoppers too). Schroeders Parachute Ant is one of our favorites as is Lawson’s Foam Beetle. Fish these downstream on long fine 6x or 7x leaders and on windy afternoons, tight to the windward shore, where trout will be mopping up all the food caught against the shore.

Tight Lines from the Beaver Dam Store staff,

Lisa, Steve, Shirley, Tom, Dennis and Bryce.