Floating Jacks Fork This Week

[stream stalker]

I'll be floating the JF this Friday and Saturday, I'm going with friends and renting canoes so fishing will be secondary to nonsense, but I'd like to know if anyone has been fishing the JF or the Current in the William's Ford to Two Rivers area. Any reports? -SS

[TroutRinger]

Haven't fished it this year yet but in the numerous summer floats I have done there, I have yet to find anything that works better than strike king bitsy tubes with 1/8oz crappie jigs shoved up inside. Usually the current does all the work and all you have to do is keep your eye and some tension on the line to feel for strikes.

[Greasy B]

The Brother and I spent 3 days floating from Buck Hollow to Bay Creek weekend before last. Water level was perfect or maybe just a bit high because it allowed a couple of jet boats to roar through our normally peaceful river. You probably won’t have to worry about that as the water was really dropping out. Cicadas were all over the water and all the fish had swollen bellies. Very few bass came up for Cicada flies though, mostly Long Ears. I tossed my usual lures and had little action until I used a 4” white jerk bait. As is typical the fish activity is related to the water temperature so our best fishing was mid to late afternoon. They look to be in their summer pattern. By the way I fish quite often from my jet boat, I just don’t run up very narrow streams filled with canoes. For the most part low water levels allow very small windows for power boats on JF, so they really are not a big deal.

The Brother left this morning to do Prongs to Bay Creek, I might be able to give you an updated report later in the week.

Good Luck,

[lukem]

I'm leaving this Fri morning to float and fish until Sunday. I believe we will be putting in at Prongs and floating to Bay Creek I beleive. If you could get us a report of your brothers trip that would be great. And any info on what they were hitting and what didn't work would be great aswell. The river gauges look like the water is expected to drop pretty fast but it doesn't look like it will be to low.

I really appreciate all the info on this site, it has helped a lot in the planning of the trip. This will be our first canoe fishing trip and first real smallmouth trip.

[stream stalker]

  On 6/7/2011 at 3:37 AM, Greasy B said:

The Brother and I spent 3 days floating from Buck Hollow to Bay Creek weekend before last. Water level was perfect or maybe just a bit high because it allowed a couple of jet boats to roar through our normally peaceful river. You probably won’t have to worry about that as the water was really dropping out. Cicadas were all over the water and all the fish had swollen bellies. Very few bass came up for Cicada flies though, mostly Long Ears. I tossed my usual lures and had little action until I used a 4” white jerk bait. As is typical the fish activity is related to the water temperature so our best fishing was mid to late afternoon. They look to be in their summer pattern. By the way I fish quite often from my jet boat, I just don’t run up very narrow streams filled with canoes. For the most part low water levels allow very small windows for power boats on JF, so they really are not a big deal.

The Brother left this morning to do Prongs to Bay Creek, I might be able to give you an updated report later in the week.

Good Luck,

Thanks for your report. -SS

[Greasy B]

The word from Bro; Fishing was good to excellent, the bite started a bit earlier than a couple of weeks ago when thing didn’t pick up till mid afternoon. He tossed the usual baits but once again the 4” white jerk bait did it. The river was more crowded than you would expect for a week day trip but as usual by the time you get below Rymers you have the river to yourself. This time the stretch from Prongs to Buck fished best. The smallmouth also attacked crawfish imitations and Holschlag hackle flies using the crayfish hop.

[lukem]

Thought I would give a report on how our fishing was. It was the first time fishing Jacks Fork for any of us but I would say the fishing was excellent. We caught tons of 8-12" smallies. Occasionally we would hook on to a bigger one with the biggest being a solid 16". We caught a half dozen plus 15"er's, plus another dozen 13-14"er's. Most of these were caught on bitsy tubes with slider jig heads, wiggle wart, senko, and a gray and white strike king fluke. The bitsy tubes probably produced the most fish but the fluke, also fished with a slider jig, probably produced most of the larger fish.

I really wanted to spend some more time working my fly rod but I was solo in a canoe and we were just fishing to hard and long to take much time for the fly rod since I'm just starting but that gives me an excuse to go back and concentrate on the fly rod!

[TroutRinger]

  On 6/16/2011 at 1:27 PM, lukem said:

Thought I would give a report on how our fishing was. It was the first time fishing Jacks Fork for any of us but I would say the fishing was excellent. We caught tons of 8-12" smallies. Occasionally we would hook on to a bigger one with the biggest being a solid 16". We caught a half dozen plus 15"er's, plus another dozen 13-14"er's. Most of these were caught on bitsy tubes with slider jig heads, wiggle wart, senko, and a gray and white strike king fluke. The bitsy tubes probably produced the most fish but the fluke, also fished with a slider jig, probably produced most of the larger fish.

I really wanted to spend some more time working my fly rod but I was solo in a canoe and we were just fishing to hard and long to take much time for the fly rod since I'm just starting but that gives me an excuse to go back and concentrate on the fly rod!

I keep telling people. I have tried everything there for over a dozen floats the last few years. Nothing else catches fish like those bitsy tubes.