Headed down next week.

[Gavin]

You missed out. They eat allot of crawfish  on that creek. Good eats!

[Al Agnew]

My buddies who are big fly fishermen and who used to fish the North Fork (one of them lives on it) all the time say it has never recovered from the record flood of 2017.  I found smallmouth fishing above the trout section to be good the last time I floated it, but that was in 2019.  I also spent a day fishing for bass while floating within the trout section down to Dawt, and never caught a smallmouth, only a few largemouth.  At that time the stripers weren't up in the river much. I'm afraid that the stripers are slowing the recovery of the trout population. 

[Quillback]

9 hours ago, Gavin said:

You missed out. They eat allot of crawfish  on that creek. Good eats!

Beaver lake stripers eat dads.  Buddy of mine cleaned a couple last spring that were full of them.  It was news to me, always thought they stuck to shad.  

[top_dollar]

12 hours ago, Gavin said:

You missed out. They eat allot of crawfish  on that creek. Good eats!

Do fish that eat crawdads taste better?  I had never heard that before. 

[top_dollar]

12 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

My buddies who are big fly fishermen and who used to fish the North Fork (one of them lives on it) all the time say it has never recovered from the record flood of 2017.  I found smallmouth fishing above the trout section to be good the last time I floated it, but that was in 2019.  I also spent a day fishing for bass while floating within the trout section down to Dawt, and never caught a smallmouth, only a few largemouth.  At that time the stripers weren't up in the river much. I'm afraid that the stripers are slowing the recovery of the trout population. 

I caught 8 or so Friday from about noon til 4pm, but they were all less than 12 inches plus 2 goggle eye.  Caught another 4 or 5 Saturday morning, and a couple more goggle eye along with the striper, but once we got to rainbow spring I didn't catch another fish save for a sucker that I must have snagged in the face.  The scenery was nice, but I wasnt particularly impressed with the river or the fishing save for the stripers.  If someone could figure out a way to catch them with regularity it would be worth the trip.   They are big fish in shallow clear water though, so Im sure catching them consistently is a challenge.