3/17 Report

[Haris122]

I went down there Friday with a fishing buddy. We made it there a few minutes after the siren went off, and were fishing after another 6-7 minutes, which was a first for me. I was really happy to get there within that first 15 minutes, but pretty soon my enthusiasm took a nose dive. My buddy caught one 12" on a roostertail and had another bite but get off in that first half hour. I on the other hand managed to not even get a bite from a trout that entire first hot 15-30 minutes, and several hours beyond. Instead I got a little rock bass and sunfish both on a small crankbait. Pretty soon the bite died down for him as well, and we went the next several hours moving slowly downstream without any further bites whatsoever. Then around 11, the proverbial floodgates opened for me, and in short succession I caught a 12", a fat 14", and a little 8 or 9", fishing the run by the bathrooms with small crankbaits. My buddy followed that up with a similar fat 14" tight-lining power bait in that same area, before I caught yet another fat 13" with the crankbaits there again. After that I moved further downstream, and proceeded to catch a healthy but slightly slimmer 14" but this time in slower water, casting upstream from one of the jetties, while my buddy still up at the run, caught another 2 on a crankbait himself, and lost one more. I got a few more bites on the crankbait in slow water, as I made my way down to the next big run, but all of them came unbuttoned pretty much right away. After waiting a bit for some people to leave the next big run, I got my chance and tried the crankbait there too, but despite a few bites, and one in particular from what probably was the strongest rainbow that entire trip, that got off after a little while, no further fish came to hand from there. Eventually other people just started to close in on that spot from all sides, casting where I was casting too, and eventually I decided the place wasn't going to yield anything else, so I let them have it and headed further downstream. One of the last few jetties before the bridge, my friend started getting a hot streak with crankbaits and trout worms, and caught 3, before I caught my 6th one, another regular 12", tying him from a jetty further down, once again on a crankbait. Shortly after that he got one more, that was going to die, so I put that one in the basket too, bringing it to 4 fish for me (he had not brought his stringer and didn't care to keep them) and bringing the fishing day to an end, since he had to head back around 4 anyways. Before I left I decided to release the big 14" that was my 2nd catch, and first fish kept in the basket. But I felt like giving it a bit more of a chance to grow bigger so I released it just downstream of the park boundary in the red ribbon section. It was still pretty lively, and I kept exposure outside of water to a minimum so I hope it did ok and survived. When it swam off it looked like it was doing fine. Overall I caught 6 trout, with half of them quite nice chunky ones with lots of shoulder to them, along with a small rock bass and sunfish. My buddy got 7 trout, with 1 chunky 14" as well, and the rest more along the regular stocking size. He also got a small rock bass as well. In the end it was my best trip during catch and keep season to date, despite me managing to somehow waste the first half hour without so much as a bite. It was also by far the most productive trip with crankbaits I've ever had there. Judging by how thick a lot of those fish were, and how much action the crankbaits were getting I'm almost wondering if the nicer fish didn't come up from the red ribbon area recently. I did see what used to be a nice 16-17" brown dead 2/3rds the way down the spring, which I'm assuming had to have got there from the river.

[bkbying89]

Haris122,

I made it down Thursday but didn't feel it was worth posting. I got started right after the siren and started at the first falls and caught a nice pumpkinseed on one of my first cast. Seems like I have been catching more sunfish lately out of the springs. I wound up missing a few and losing two but managed a nice 16 inches below the big hole at the beginning. Caught him with a white sparkle Wooley bugger. I left around 2:00. I did see a lot of nice fish and full stringers. One trout I saw caught off the bridge probably went 2 1/2 pounds. The two boys let it go as they had a couple decent ones on the stringer already.