Aug 9-15 Fishing Report

[FlyFishinFool]

Took the family and spent a week down at BSSP - definitely HOT, HOT, HOT !!!! Temps hit 96 on Monday, 99 on Tue, Wed & Thur, then 101 on Fri, 100 on Sat, and finally cooled down to 95 on Sun. What this meant is that on Mon-Fri lots of folks fished a couple of hours in the morning and then the streams were almost empty - a couple of days I had the entire island in zone-1 to myself by 9:30am (I could see people up by the disabled access piers, and I could see people down at the hole above the hatchery dam, but not a soul in between. On the weekend is was a bit more crowded as expected, but still thinned out pretty fast once the sun cleared the trees and the temps started to spike! Again, the only problem was it was HOT!

Fishing was OK for an hour or two, but with the low water and the bright sun and the heat, fishing for most of the day was slow. I did my best using small midges (size 18) in brown, black and grey. A few folks had good luck sight fishing with very small scuds (18 & 20) and with small glo-balls. One guy had good luck a couple of mornings with dry flies using very small Renegades (sizes 20 and 22)but I personally had problems with size 22 Renegades - the fish would hit, but I kept missing the hookset! As always, stripping a crackleback under the water worked pretty well after 5pm or 6pm, but the folks stripping full sinking lines during the day said it was pretty slow in the heat.

Size of fish? - a few pretty good sized ones, but the majority were 12 inch torpedoes - skinny and not much color (mostly just silver). One of the hatchery guys said they were stocking from their last pool of 12-12.5 inch trout, and they would have to start stocking from the oldest 11-11.5 inch pool before too long. I thought when they went from a limit of 5 fish to a limit of 4 fish DNR stated that with the reduced catch limit we would see larger fish on a regular basis - seems to be going the other way!

My daughter fished 3 days at the whistle bridge and caught a limit every day. One day I finally got her to try a new flyrod using midges up in zone-1. She not only caught her first trout on a flyrod, she then proceeded to catch not only a limit, but also the biggest trout any of us caught all week! To say she was a happy camper was a real understatement! She was very proud to be the provider of the fish for the fish fry that night for dinner!

[stlfisher]

Sounds like a decent trip and thanks for the report. Even though the fishing seemed a little slow in the heat how was the overall numbers of fish? Seems to be a wide range of opinions on the numbers lately.

Anyway, congrats to your daughter for her first catch on a fly rod. I bet you are one proud dad.

[DoveTail]

I think the fish numbers are lower, but they seem to be in big schools so some void areas but where they are in schools there are quite a few. Those areas tend to be where someone hasn't been splashing in the water and the fish feel secure.

Typcial trout park setting, the fish get picky but fishing quite and not spooking them works well.

[rcguy]

Great Report FFF. Hate to hear about the smaller fish!!! I thought I have noticed I've caught some nice ones this year.

[FishinCricket]

6 days in my neck of the woods and you didn't even stop by to say hi?!?! I thought we was friends!!!???!?!

Oh, you don't know me? Well, you're missing out! :wink:

Glad you're family came down, hope you come see us again soon.. Next time, dooo stop in and say hello?