First Big Holiday Over 5/29/12

[Idylwilde]

Well Monday and folks are starting to leave for home after the holiday weekend. Saturday & Sunday was very busy in the park with families enjoying the river and park. Fishing was good but ruff with all the anglers competing for the fish. The fly area had lots of good sized fish in it and early in the mornings they were hitting great on red/white jigs, Olive woolley, white jigs, & Egg patterns.

I took two anglers out for their first fly fishing trip and the managed to catch fish on egg pattern's & Woollies. Had to work hard to keep then enthused in it after one got over the top of the hip waders he was wearing, & broke about 8" off the tip of his new Bass Pro White River rod. But at the end of the day they said the fell in love with Montauk & fly Fishing. I knowest the most fish I had ever seen swimming with jig's and flies in their mouth's and sides. The area just above the dam received the most pressure and the rock hole had as many as 10 anglers around it at one time. But the great thing about Montauk is you don't have to go far to find a stretch of water that has fish and no anglers in sight.

On busy weekends you can find shallow flat water that has fish that have not been pressured and seen every fly that has walked by. When we were coming up the chute into the rock hole I saw about 15 good sized fish laying in about 8" of flat water. We managed to drift an egg pattern and catch one. They had all moved out of the deep water at the rock hole because of the on slot of tackle being drifted through the hole.

Even just above the dam in the deep water the fish had moved to the shallow weed beds to get away from the pressure. All in all it was a very good day on the river, the temp was in the high 90's and wind was blowing from the SW at between 15 & 25 MPH. The slow water and eddies were covered with pollen from Sycamore trees and very clear under the film.

Crackle backs and #16 black wollyes were best worked just under the surface in quick short strips. San Juan worms was fair just rolled along the bottom. Jigs was also doing fair when fished quick just under the surface, I found that if anglers were fishing from the opposite bank and on the bank the fish were very spooked and tended not to even look at a bait. I also noticed that white shirts spook fish when they are in the shallow water. One of the men with me was wearing a bright white shirt and the same fish that the other man walked with in a yard of took off when the white shirt came within 10 yards. In the deeper water it did not seem to effect them.

When we started I had rigged them with 5X tippet, but within the first 30 min I saw they needed to go to 7X fluorocarbon. That made all the difference in the amount of hits they got, but being new at the fly fishing they lost several fish. Things will be settling into the summer patterns this week and there are a lot of fish that will be ready to play this week.