11/20/14 - Slow Day But Some Nice Fish

[hoglaw]

Took two co-workers to float the Norfork yesterday. We had a great low water window, and some really nice weather. Well we thought it was nice, I guess the fish didn't.

I fished a jig in the first two long holes, and we stopped to fish the run against the boulder bank between them. Caught exactly zero fish on the jig. That's an exceptionally rare day. I got into a few of them in the run fishing a heavy nymph with a purple ruby midge tied on a dropper above it, Czech style. That's becoming one of my favorite ways to fish the heavier minimum flow areas on the Norfork. We spent most of our day in the McClellan's area where we caught maybe 15 fish between the three of us. When we got back in our boats, I picked up the spinning rod again and stuck with it for the rest of the day. The jig fishing was still extremely slow. I was starting to wonder whether the bites were just really subtle, because I've never struggled that much out there.

I did manage to get a really nice rainbow just over 17" when I switched to a white jig. Had him on for quite a while. Next cast in the same spot I hooked into something massive. He just sat still for a minute, then made a screaming run downstream under my kayak. I lowered my rod into the water to make sure he could take line, which he did and hard. But then nothing. Got it in and the hook was bent badly. That may have happened on the rainbow I landed, but I didn't check. Big mistake. Missed one more in that area and saw a big gold flash when he rolled and sucked in the jig. Seemed like it was probably a good fish.

All in all we caught maybe 35 fish between the three of us. Quality was good with a number of 15 and 16" fish. But the takes were very subtle, and the fish would hardly move when first hooked. I was wishing I'd brought my nanofil reel for the jig rod. Maybe that would have helped. We took out at Ackerman instead of going all the way down to the river. Not sure I'll do that again. Those stairs were a lot tougher than I remember from my younger days of doing that float.

It was a slow day on the Norfork, but we caught enough to keep it interesting.

[Ham]

Much better day of fishing than I had at work. I'm glad you were able to get after them and I certainly wish I had been able to do so.. I'm sure that taking out at Ackemann seemed like a good idea. Lol. Maybe you could have largely emptied the boats and them drug them up the hill easier with a rope from the top?

Sorry the numbers were down. I'd love to do that float again.