Last weekend at Roaring River

[Jeremy Hunt]

Went to Roaring River yesterday and met Chris from tying class. He met one of his friends from Kansas City so there was three of fishing. I got there around 10:30 in the morning and boy it was crowded with people. I forgot that it was probably going to be busy because of the holidays. I have been so spoiled the last couple of weeks because there has not been anyone fishing down here so I guess you could say I’ve had the river all to myself in a way. I went to Tim’s fly shop and talked to him for a while and met back up with Chris and his buddy around noon. As soon as I met back up with them I was thinking about going back to Taney instead of fishing here. I think they were thinking the same thing I was. The game plan was to get in his truck and go look at the lower section of the river before we decided to head out. I went ahead and put my rod in his truck just incase we came up on some fish or a spot we could fish. We went to the last pool and looked over the hill and saw that there were some big fish and nobody was fishing for them. I only had my rod and the fly I had attached to the end of my tippet. I already had it rigged with an egg pattern so I threw it in and with in the first couple of cast had a 7 pounder on. I asked Chris if he had a neat and thankfully he did. I didn’t have my camera either so I was hoping he had one of those too. He did, so we did get some pictures of the fish. I will post them as soon as I get the pictures from him.

As soon as we put the fish back I made about three more cast and caught the other big fish we saw. I would say she weighed around 5 pounds. We also got some pictures that. After catching those two fish I decided to stay and maybe see what else the day would bring at the park. While we were all fishing down there they didn’t catch anything of any size, but all in all we caught around forty fish between the three of us while we were down at the first spot. We went back upstream throwing the egg and having little to no luck with this pattern today. It was little different then the pervious weeks before. I would have to say it was from all the pressure. Everybody was probably fishing eggs that day. I went ahead and switched over to little midge patterns and had most my luck on size 18 v-rib midges tied in black with a 3/32 nickel tungsten bead for the head. I also fished some wooly’s in ginger trying to get a big fishes attention with no luck. We didn’t catch anything big for the rest of the day, but the park was fishing well if you knew what the fish wanted. I would ask some people if they were having any luck and some said they were doing great and other said they didn’t catch anything all. I did see a father with his hands full trying work with four kids and teach them how to catch trout with a fly rod. I watched him for a while before I made my way over to him. I told him I was sucker for kids and asked him if I could help him change his luck and maybe have a shot a catching some trout with his kids. I gave him some flies and showed him hot to fish it before calling it a day. I really hope that helped him and his kids catch trout.

[Steve Smith]

That’s great Jeremy that you helped the kids out. I did well on egg patterns too in Roaring River on Sunday, but I had to drop down to a size 22 to get them to look at it. I decided that maybe I should try the small stuff because the fish were active, but not taking any fly I could offer. I took my 4 wt. with a 6X mono leader. I cut off about three feet of the tippet, and tied in a tippet ring. I took about two feet of 6X from the tippet ring to a gray size 18 G Bug. I tied about a foot of dropper 6X tippet from the hook eye of the G Bug to a size 22 egg pattern in Oregon Cheese with an indicator. I just let the setup free drift… no sinker. I’d watch for the swirl of a midging trout and cast just in front of the fish. I caught most of them on the micro egg rather than the G Bug, and it was really tough getting the hook set. It took me a while before I realized you can’t snap set a size 22 hook. Oregon Cheese and Oregon Cheese W/ red did well on Monday too with a four pound ‘bow.

[Jeremy Hunt]

Hey Steve,

We are going this Monday(12/17/06). Maybe we will see you down there.

Look for a black nissan frontier, that's me.

[hawgslayer]

just a quick correction jeremy. this monday would be the 18 not 17

[Steve Smith]

Jeremy; I'll try to look you up at noon time. I've got to work Monday, but there is always lunchtime.

[Jeremy Hunt]

just a quick correction jeremy. this monday would be the 18 not 17

Thanx,

jh

Jeremy; I'll try to look you up at noon time. I've got to work Monday, but there is always lunchtime.

Sounds good... I should be somewhere in the upper section.