Lilley's Fishing Buddy Report, Monday,feb 4

[Dave Cook]

Well I was one of those that waited for the sun to come out Monday. We had a good reason. This was the start of my wife's retirement vacation. Yes, we started retirement with a vacation. Nothing like celebrating down at Lilley's for birthday's, anniversaries and now retirement.

The rain had moved out and blue skies, light west wind and 55 Degrees weather greeted us for a great late winter fishing trip. We fished below the dam from about 1 to 5 pm and the fish were biting all afternoon. We fly fished with 4wt rods. Mine had 5x and my wife's had 6x tippet. Yes, she is better at keeping her fly on the line. Size 10 sculpin-olive beadhead wooly buggers were getting smacked with regularity. Swing it, strip it, they wanted it. Fortunately the size fish was running a little better today with many 13-14 inch fish. My wife caught the biggest for the day, a 15" rainbow. Finally I decided to try other flies to see how they worked. I caught a few on a griffith's gnat and also on crackleback. But the action wasn't as hot as fishing the wooly.

We kept talking about going on down to the rebar and beyond but it was jammed up down there like the weekend. After 4 pm we just fished from the hatchery side just in case TableRock dam started generating but they never did. We called it a day after the sun went behind the dam and headed for Dana's to finish the day's celebration.

Later that night, back at the cabin, we had a "nightcap" bowl of ice cream and brownies. The forecast for tomorrow is suppose to be even better. Can't wait!

[duckydoty]

I saw you two come out there. We headed down to the old KOA area just after you arrived. Punished little bows on the pine squirrel sculpin right where you two were fishing for a couple of hours before you got there. Glad you got out and enjoyed the day. It sure turned out to be a fine one. Happy retirement to your wife!

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks for the report, Dave. Wish I could have gotten out and joined you. Gotta shake this head cold first. Haven't been outside in 2 days.

[Dave Cook]

DD - KOA was on my list of places to try, but with such easy access to good fishing by the hatchery, it's hard to move.

Phil-Sorry to hear you were laid up. Thanks for the hospitality for the fishing buddy special.

Tuesday's fishing was again below Outlet 3 working down the bar towards outlet 4. Another sunny day where the highs made it to the mid 60's. Water was running again all day but by 11 am it was pretty gentle. Low enough to wade out pretty far. Again woolies worked well over the bar but I missed more strikes than I did when fishing small jigs. Average fish was still on the small side but the number of bites (many) kept it fun.

When the generation from one generator is low (under 25mw), 1/50 oz jig fishes well and can still be fished from a fly rod, with or without a strike indicator. A couple of john boats from Lilley's motored upstream of me until they were up by the boulder creek. There they turned their boats and started drift fishing. They were fishing something under an indicator with a fly rod and as soon as they got their lines in the water, they had fish on. I watched for a while as they kept catching and drifting but then I turned my focus back to the hole in front of me. Looked like they could easily limit on under 12" trout if they wanted to.

Tuesday evening, I took my spinning rod down on Lilley's dock and fished from about 5:30 to 6:30pm with a 1/8th oz jig. I caught and released two small ones and broke off a third trying to lift it out of the water on my 2 lb line. Nice to know that you don't have to go far to catch a meal.