12/26 Dam to below Parkers

[Devan S.]

Drove down to Cane brake first thing this morning. Showed up at 6:20am. Got suited up....left waders in truck and they were frozen. Bailed across the river and headed downstream. Schedule said zero generation today so I figured I was relatively safe. 3 cast later and the horn went off. I was probably 300 yards away from the crossing. Fat boy can run in waders on the gravel. Got across just as I began to notice current. If I would have been 5 minutes later I would have been stuck. 

Went up directly below the dam where there is a big eddy under generation. Plopped down just downstream of the bait chucker's and proceeded to catch about 20 fish. A handful of over slot rainbows but mostly small stocker sized fish. Caught several browns that were probably dumped recently as they weren't very big. Caught almost all my fish here on a olive jig.

 

After about 2 hours, they cut off the water and I went back down to Cane brake and began working my way upstream along the bank. Caught a couple slot rainbows and one walleye that was about 1/8" shy of being a keeper. All caught on a rainbow jerk bait. 

Tonight I went back down to parkers and went downstream to my functional wading limit(just about halfway down through the campground). There were 19 cars in the parking lot when I got there. People lined all along the gravel bar downstream and lots and lots of crawlers and bait being soaked. Seen several people manning multiple rods which is illegal(not much catching going on that I saw). Nevertheless waded back up and got to the truck about 6:30 and headed home with only one small rainbow caught. There was a lot of fish rising but nothing taking jerk baits.