Report Today 2-22

[dgames]

It had been over a month since I had been to the LI and I was getting cabin fever. Worked in the morning and then took a 1/2 day vacation and made it from Tulsa to Watts a little after 1pm. Couldn't believe how many cars were in the lot- about 15 or so. I guess the beautiful weather brought crowds out even on a Wednesday.

I hiked downstream to the top of the long deep hole where the side channel re-enters the river. River is in good shape, clearest I have seen in the past year. Started out with a bh midge below a dry fly. Pretty limited interest in this at first. After 30 minutes or so and only a couple of fish, I switched to a beadhead brown wooly bugger thing that I have had some success on there, and the fishing immediately picked up. Caught about 30 on this in the next couple of hours. After breaking a fly off, I decided to switch back to the midge as there were tons of midging fish around me by this time. Did well on the midge then for the rest of the day until it got too dark to see my dry fly.

It was a good day to get back on the river!

[DaddyO]

Nice report. I've been wanting to get out and get back down there. I may try to go this weekend.

I have had different people say that they do pretty well on brown wooly buggers. I've never tried them in brown. I have been successful with white during a shad kill. Do you cast it quartered downstream, swing it and strip it back or do you drift it under and indicator?

[dgames]

Dead drift under an indicator.

These are poor pics, but this is the fly and what is used for the hackle. The hackle is a material called fun fur that I bought at Michaels. Trim the fibers to about 1/2" or so long and the wrap like hackle. The body under the hackle is golden brown ice dub. The tail is a small piece of pine squirrel strip. A tyer from the Bartlesville showed me this a year ago at a tying event. This ended up being my main producer while the water was off color last summer/fall. The first time I tried it, I tried stripping it and didn't get anything. I then put on an indicator and started dead drifting it and was immediately into fish.

[JCWolfe]

Maybe the brown bugger looks like an emerging march brown nymph. Did you see any mayflies?

[DaddyO]

Nice. I'll have to pick up some of that fun fur.

[asap52]

I was above the island this past Monday and started with midges with a little success. I moved up above the boulder hole and switched to a brown sowbug under a indicator. Tore them up!!! There was a front moving in that day and as long as the wind was creating some chop .........they couldn't get enough of it. I'll try and get a pic of the sowbug posted soon.

Tight lines,

Corky

[dgames]

Maybe the brown bugger looks like an emerging march brown nymph. Did you see any mayflies?

I saw one at the end of the day climbing on me. By this time, fish seemed to be feeding heavily on midges. Just before dark, there were rises everywhere.

With the bugger thing, I think it just looks really buggy to me. I am guessing it is somewhat of an attractor pattern.

[JCWolfe]

That is a good looking fly, I'll have to go find Michaels or see if Hobby lobby has that. I'm also going to start using a march brown on my dry/dropper since seeing those march browns last weekend. I tied a few midges last night and am thinking the rootbeer midge flash might be good with the right thread under it. I used light cahill under a couple but think it might be to goldish looking. Olive and blue dun might be good. I guess the fish will let me know.

[asap52]

Here is a pic of the sowbugs I used.

[TheTugistheDrug]

Thanks to everyone for sharing all the good information. I enjoy fishing the LIR and even more so now that I am able to learn from everyone sharing their experiences. Thanks!!!