Fished It Yesterday.....

[Nick Williams]

And it was AWESOME!!! Noticed Tuesday night that they had no generation on the schedule, and luckily I have openings on Wednesday mornings to be able to go! Showed up at Watts at about 7:30. Beautiful morning! Only 3 cars. Walked down to the water, low and calm and flowing. Suited up and walked down to that first riffle, was interested to see how the major flows had changed the river bed and currents. Definitely widened out that spot, but still had some good current and depth. I only saw fish dimpling the surface straight down from the parking lot, but I wasn't interested in throwing a midge. So I tied on a copper John and a Hares ear and started picking fish up very consistently. It was a great morning of fishing. That fish was easily my biggest caught yesterday and was probably 15". He actually took line off of my reel, very healthy fish. After fishing that run for almost two hours and not stopping catching fish, I decided to move elsewhere. Walked up to straight across from the parking lot and tied on a pine squirrel leech. Only fished that for about 15 minutes, though I picked up a few fish. The browns are more concentrated in the calmer water for me. Anyone else notice a theme like that? All those browns that were stocked are starting to get some size though. Provided people don't take them early we could have a few nice sized browns there!! At about 11 I drove to marval, had some friends staying there for the weeks so decided to go fish with them for an hour or two. Definitely didn't catch the numbers there. All the fish were about 12" though. I also caught a white bass on a nymph, first time for everything I guess. I didn't get a picture of it though. Most of my pictures were from my gopro, which need to be resized first before posting. There were people fishing powerbait here, and they weren't catching anything at all. I was surprised. Started seeing some surface action so I started paying attention. THERE WERE LONGNOSE GAR EVERYWHERE!!! It was ridiculous. They were spawning though, and some of the females were as big around as my thigh and only in 8" of water! I got plenty of pictures and video of them, but again, gotta resize them before I can post. It was crazy though because you literally could walk up behind them and grab their tail and they would still just sit there. Amazing stuff. Got me wondering though, would a trout pick up another specie's eggs? Didn't catch anymore trout, but seeing the gar made the trip worth it. Gore, even though its not the White or Taney, is still a great close to home fishery!

[TheTugistheDrug]

Great news! Thanks for the post and the information. It has been a long time since I have fished LIR but you have me excited...

[JCWolfe]

Been watching here and TU's facebook page to see if anyone was lucky enough to fish. Glad you got to go. I just started a new job or I would have went wednesday.

[On The Fly 6]

I went out Monday and tried my luck with an acquaintance from high school. He contacted me via the Facebook and asked me if I could teach him how to fly fish. I accepted the challenge and met him in Gore around 7:30. He told me that he had been wanting to learn to fly fish for years but didn't really know anyone that was as obsessed with it as I was, so he hadn't really been (its a healthy obsession I think!) With all the construction going on, all the signs on the side of the road were taken down so I'm glad I didn't try giving him directions on where to go! I thought we would start easy and hit watts first. We arrived at the Watts area and there wasn't anyone else there. First time thats happened. We got our gear gathered up and made the hike down river to a pool I usually have luck in. I got my friend set up with a hair and copper about 2ft under an indicator and he picked his spot. As I was rigging up my own rod, he picked up a fish. I had to give instructions on how to fight the fish as he fought it. He got it in, released, and picked up another before I was finished getting setup! Soon after, I began picking up fish. After catching about 15, I decided to switch flies and try something different. I switched to the game changer midge and picked up a few more fish. All the while, my friend continued to catch or miss numerous fish. After catching a few on the game changer I switched to a red zebra and picked up a few more. Throughout the morning I'm guessing we caught 40-50 fish between the two of us. Around noon we decided to break for lunch. After lunch I took him to the gravel parking area near the dam. We both managed to pick up a few fish before the whistle blew above the kiddie pool. As we waded to shore I told him we could hit Marval and still get in about 45 mins of fishing. He was eager to keep catching fish so we made our way to Marval. Once we were on the river we hiked down stream and found a riffle full of fish. We stood about 10 feet apart and fished the riffle and picked up a fish nearly every drift. The water finally got to us so we decided to call it a day. I've earned a new fishing buddy. He's eager to go again soon and so am I! All together, I'd say we finished the day with nearly 70 fish between the two of us. We caught several little browns throughout the morning and managed a few bigger bows. I'll try and post a picture or two once I'm on a computer. Hope you guys get a chance to get out!

[JCWolfe]

You got a new fishing partner now. I fished saturday and had a good day. My buddy caught 3 buffalo carp on crankbaits with the biggest being 25". Also saw a guy get his flyrod broke from a buffalo, bad handling of the rod and fish got his rod broke.

[On The Fly 6]

Eek. That sucks for that guy. We saw a lot of carp and a whole lot of gar! I guess it's spawning time for them?

[JCWolfe]

I dont know for sure but you might be right about the spawning. I was there early last month sometime and there were Gar eggs everywhere. Carp always show up, maybe spawning or eating all those eggs. I've got a 24" carp on the flyrod and a couple other smaller ones. You'll know when you have one on.

[On The Fly 6]

Perhaps I need to just target the carp. Suggestions on good carp flies?

[JCWolfe]

I just happen to catch those at different times fly fishing. I wasnt targeting them. Don't have any idea on flies. Didnt mean to imply I got those on one trip.

[OKFlyFisher44]

If you don't wanna get super fancy with fly selection, toss a bugger or a small Clouser then just bounce it off the bottom in front of them. We have caught them that way before after Striper fishing in the mornings on the LIR and chasing carp on local creeks. If u want some legit carp flies, look around for the "Damsel" carp fly on YouTube. It owns carp...