Fished Maramec Springs today 1/28/16

[bkbying89]

Beauty day, slow early then picked up. The first fish broke off. The next fish was a 19-inch rainbow. after that, I picked them up often enough to make the day pleasurable. Glo-balls caught the majority and a couple came on a WD-40 size 20. I had some flys buzzing around and had a beetle crawling on me so I tried a terrestrial beetle but no lock. It got bumped but no takers. 

[jackdizo]

Nice! I was out there yesterday as well. I fished below the park all day in the red ribbon section. Started out with Streamers. Caught a few nice smallmouth, then worked my way down river, picked up a few rainbows. Made my way back upstream closer to the spring and found them stacked. Probably caught 20 fish out of one 30 - 40 yd section of river. All rainbows. Day was beautiful! and the fish were biting good... no complaints.!

Heres a little 18-20 incher (although kind of skinny) I snapped a quick photo of in the net. 

Tight lines! Cheers.

 

 

[marcus]

i bet there will be alot of fisherman out there this weekend with the nice weather

[jackdizo]

@marcus yeah, thats why I went yesterday. tried to avoid the crowds. Im sure it will be crazy out there this weekend. pretty much every trout park will be packed on saturday for sure...

[bkbying89]

I went back on Friday and didn't do well at all. I couldn't get a good hook set to save my life. Most of the people I talked to remarked that they were hitting lightly or short. I had two fish come up and take my Palsa and swim with it. Next time I'll rig a hook in it.

There are a lot of really large trout stacked up in the pools. I was told that the high water damaged the dam in the spring and some of the large trout escaped into the general population. Lots of nice fish in there I saw one Large trout with the tail of a fish sticking out of his mouth, and that was not a small tail.

I had a very dark, almost black caddis land on me. It resembled a Goddard caddis fly. could anyone tell me if this was a stone fly or some other type of caddis? I would say it was a size 14 or 16. I'm leaning towards the 14 though.

[jackdizo]

@bkbying89 not sure what to tell you man. In the park itself the only thing I have been able to catch fish on is size 20 or smaller. mostly caddis patterns. and fished in the surface film on the swing with little twitches. have caught some stripping a mohair leech and a few on a size 18 brassie. But otherwise my fish have all come on size 20 -24 caddis emerger patterns tied pretty dark, almost black. I dont fish in the park alot when Im at the springs however, I like the solitary of going down below the park and fishing the river usually. I would assume that bug that landed on you was a caddis fly, Ive seen them coming off thick out there recently, but the fish dont seem to be responding to the bigger ones in the park, but the real tiny ones, again size 20-24... use really small tippet as well. 6x-7x when fishing those tiny caddis patterns and see how you do! hope this helps.

 

 

[bkbying89]

Thank's jackdizo, I have been fishing midge nymphs in size 18 and 20 with some success. I have just decided to try some other flys like you suggested. I have been fish smaller than I ever would have considered before and it does seem that that is what they want, I just seem to have a hard time keeping them hooked up. I de-barbed all of my flys but the smallest as I have had some of the hooks break, even as careful as I am. As the weather warms up I will be moving out of the park to the rivers and streams. The park is nice but it's really not my style of fishing.   

[Haris122]

Sweet, good reports. Jackdizo, which fought best, the trout or the smallies (presuming equal size)?

[jackdizo]

@Haris122 I hook into a smallmouth that went about 15-16 inches and was nice and fat around a 100 yds downstream from the spring. He fought real good, but I do have to say that the 20 inch trout really had some spunk in him and gave me the best fight I had all day. Sometimes those bigger trout fight for a good second and give up, but this one fought me at the net until it was in it. I would take a good smallmouth fight any day of the week though, and yes, the smaller trout VS the smallmouth are no competition, those little bronzebacks like to got at it when you get them on the end of the line...

 

Cheers!

 

[bkbying89]

I would like to thank everyone for the help. The people on Ozark Anglers are very helpful. Since I started fly fishing this has been the most informative and helpful.Thanks again.

Bill