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Posted

Hoping you guys get a little rain tonight/tomorrow. Should help it a little, put some color in the clear water maybe.

Posted

As dry as it is we could take a couple inches and it still might not do too much. Keep fingers crossed, but keep it away from St. Louis on Wed. night, I'm heading to the game!

"The problem with a politician’s quote on Facebook is you don’t know whether or not they really said it." –Abraham Lincoln

Tales of an Ozark Campground Proprietor

Dead Drift Fly Shop

Posted

Hopefully it doesn't adversely affect the fishing over the next 3 days. Have been counting down the days to this trip for weeks :).

Posted

Not sure how much down there, probably not enough, water down the gravel roads a little.

Posted

I would think rain would help the fishing if anything. I like it when we get a little rise or color in the water. It's low enough now that I don't think anything can hurt us (short of about 10 inches).

"The problem with a politician’s quote on Facebook is you don’t know whether or not they really said it." –Abraham Lincoln

Tales of an Ozark Campground Proprietor

Dead Drift Fly Shop

Posted

Also don't want to sleep in a wet tent, but hopefully that's not a concern after Wednesday.

Posted

Looks like water level went up a little, held, now dropping. Wonder if it affected the bite. I noticed it was cool/cold windt at my place of employment northeast of you guys, grey clouds, wind from the north-northwest, not good fishing weather

Posted

The guys today caught a few fish a piece and lost twice what they caught they said. Not a great day, but sounded like they were biting okay, didn't sound like any particular fly was the ticket.

"The problem with a politician’s quote on Facebook is you don’t know whether or not they really said it." –Abraham Lincoln

Tales of an Ozark Campground Proprietor

Dead Drift Fly Shop

Posted

The guys today caught a few fish a piece and lost twice what they caught they said. Not a great day, but sounded like they were biting okay, didn't sound like any particular fly was the ticket.

Exactly. There is still very little pattern....catching fish everywhere from 1' of water through the main channel to the other side of the river in 1' of water instead of them being in one particular spot. Fly selection is basically anything you happen to get in front of any give fishes face and no pattern on it either. Fishing is better than it has been in a while but if we run into a solid pattern that holds fishing will go through the roof.

Posted

I was among "the guys" that fished yesterday. Yesterday we brought a total of 5 to hand and lost another five, usually in the air, which is usually fine with me. We just fished the riffles and runs where there is fast water (or slow water in between) since we have no idea where they may be otherwise. We put in at Kelly, paddled up to Lamb, then most islands on the way to Sunburst. Our most productive spots were Jack's and Cave Riffle. We hooked fish on stoneflies, san juan worms, prince nymphs, pheasant tails, and ?...I don't remember. Wednesday late afternoon we tried the islands above Patrick, 3 hook ups there but no fish. We tried our luck outside of Sunburst this morning, leaving that for last. I had two fish on but lost them before I could get the hook out (one on a prince, the other on a black bugger). No one else caught any trout, the big time noob among us (we're all noobs) caught a smallie.

All in all it was a great trip. Much improvement over our previous trip. We are getting better at dead drifting, starting to figure it when we're getting strikes, and figuring out whether or not we're deep enough. Our last trip we only caught a total of 3 fish (I caught all of those) and had no other hook-ups. So this time around we got into more than twice as many fish, my fishing buddy finally got his first trout, and we had a great time camping/floating/being guys away from the girls. This was my third trip to the NFoW and I can't wait to go back, my normal fishing partner's second trip, and the third guys first time. We almost always fished all of us from the same island, spread out, but eventually hitting the same water, knowing that this probably costs us some fish but it's as much about the company and learning things from one another as much as it is about catching a lot of fish at this stage.

Things we're still struggling with: 1) Knots/tangles/handling of tippet. I'd say the ultra noob among us and my buddy spent nearly half their time fixing crap and the other half fishing. I had a furled leader this time and that made a world of difference. I spent way more time fishing than I have in the past and from what I could tell it didn't hinder my ability to catch fish (always had 2+ ft of tippet on it). 2) Moss. Now that we're down deep enough this is finally becoming a problem. 3) Finding/and/or enticing the fish. I'm sure our drifts aren't perfect, and practice will go a long way to help. 4) Losing fish once they're hooked. Actually a new problem, it was nice to get into more fish but would have liked to handle more of course. 5) A bigger cooler. The beer runs out faster when you go hours without catching fish ;).

Can't wait to get back, hope to go again soon before it gets too cold.

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