Fishing Report: 9/1

[Rainstein]

Fished late in the morning (I have a two-year-old who won't aways cooperate with early morning fishing plans) just above Beaver Dam. A pretty decent number of bait fishermen on the banks, and not so many fly guys as I thought, given the long weekend. Maybe the Razorback season opener kept people away, who knows. Plenty of fish in the water, but almost no flow at all, so drifting was almost impossible. Very clear water and very slow current made fish very spooky. Hooked three on a size 16 bead head zebra midge, but, like an idiot, lost two of them. The one I did catch was about stocker size. Since I didn't get on the water until about 10:45 or so, I'm thinking it was better in the early AM. Was cool early, and one guy told me there was a pretty good mist on the water in the morning, while another who was leaving as I got there told me he'd been there for a while and caught 5 in the hole I ended up fishing the rest of the morning (catching only 1). Fishing dried up completely about 1:00, so I packed it in shortly thereafter. Talked to another guy from Oklahoma as I was leaving, who said he did pretty well on an olive bugger and an olive and rust colored bugger that looked a lot like a really big (size 12 or bigger) griffith's gnat (green body with lots of rusty red). I'd tried a bright green mini-bugger at first with some flash in the tail, but they hadn't been interested (probably more like terrified with those water conditions). Same with a red headed, olive tailed micro jig. Only think I had any luck on was the zebra midge, and I was only 200 yards from the guy who caught a bunch on something totally different. Was a really nice day though, and worth standing waist deep in frickin' freezing water.