Lately...

[joshuapaul]

Anyone been out lately? Wondering if any of this weather coming through may help me out Wednesday.

[JCWolfe]

I haven't been in awhile but do know flow is low and that people have been having luck using hare's ear nymphs. March Brown time.

[joshuapaul]

Very true. Wish I was over there today. I love fishing in the snow!

[joshuapaul]

Still water, lots of sunshine and a bump in pressure. You guessed it....slow fishing.

It still beats working though.

The fish I landed seemed rough. They were pretty thin, with malformed fins.

I ventured up to the upper dam parking lot today and I was shocked at how bad the algae is up there. It's everywhere. I haven't been up there in quite awhile, but it wasn't near that bad last time I saw it. I found two small fingerlings caught in the algae in the shallows. One was alive, the other wasn't

Sorry, this is not the most positive report. I was bummed by the LIR today.

[jimmyb]

Fished Watts yesterday with similar results -- slow! Did manage to catch a few on an olive wooly bugger but it took 5 hours. Amazed by all the moss that has shown up in the last two weeks. Hope they can release some water soon.

[joshuapaul]

Fished Watts yesterday with similar results -- slow! Did manage to catch a few on an olive wooly bugger but it took 5 hours. Amazed by all the moss that has shown up in the last two weeks. Hope they can release some water soon.

Was that you I chatted with in the black Infinity? We were in the black Tacoma.

[OKFlyFisher44]

I'm surprised to hear that the fishing has been so poor. Usually during the winter, the OWD really bumps up the stocking program and there are tons of fish in the river. Winter and early spring is when this place really shines as far as the trout fishing goes. The march browns should be kicking off any time down there too. Anybody heard anything about any reduction in the stocking?

Also, how has the water clarity been? When we were there a while back, it was DIRTY from Watts up to the dam but down at Car Body Hole it was fairly clear. Nothing like fishing for trout in a mudhole....feel like you should be catfishin'....

[JCWolfe]

I know they haven't generated much but saw they did yesterday. If I'm not fishing I'm always looking at the USGS page on the LIR. I believe they have been doing work at the dam so that might be the reason for the lack of generation. Maybe the generation stirred up some bugs and cleaned out the river bed some.

[joshuapaul]

I was hoping to see some March Browns, but never did. The water was fairly clear, just still. I'm heading back Monday and I'll probably just fish the lower sections. I haven't fully explored that area yet.

[Jim G]

Do you all keep to the same midge patterns/tactics for the browns or change over to stripping wooly buggers, etc?

I was down two weeks ago and like what most folks have been saying - was very slow. They didnt generate that day or the day before. 5 or 6 fish all day. Couldn't get a drift and couldn't ever get to a consistent bite on anything. Main thing of note was guy that put in upstream of me for a while (I was about a mile south of Watts) who was stripping a olive wooly bugger and hammering them on every cast. Fortunately for the safety of the fish population, I conveniently had not carried anything like that out and the fish were not similarly tempted by me.