Fishing Buddy Report

[Phil Lilley]

The following is my report on Stan Hanold and my stay with you

Wednesday, Jan 25 & Thursday, Jan 26th. Once again thanks for your

offer and I hope you find the following useful. I want to preface this

by admitting a certain apprenticeship that I am enjoying and hopefully

you will understand that my presentation ability and lack of knowledge

almost certainly plays the greater role in my success then what I'm

using or how the fish are biting in general. However, we both enjoyed

our stay and I'm sure we will be returning often to you resort and have

much better numbers to relay.

We got on the water around 11:30 Wednesday. They were not running any

generation and the water clarity I thought was pretty good. We were

fishing rocking chair and headed for the riffle on the other side, just

beyond the rock that is visible when the water is pretty low. I was

fishing a scud with a size 20 zebra midge dropper but had no luck. I

switched to a size 18 midge and had a couple of fish take them. I went

upstream toward the dam but below rebar and fished off the rock bar with

a size 18 red midge and a similar dropper with limited success (one).

They started generating and we closed up shop around 4.

Thursday we got on the river about 11. They had stopped generating and

the water was falling. We started out at rocking chair. I put on a

size 18 zebra midge tied off of a flashback scud. Some success but I

went on up the shore toward the dam. I had some luck with a size 10

black Wooly Bugger below the overlook. Then switched to about a size 20

double midge set up and had some success above the discharge. I fished

back down the side to rocking chair with no luck using a variety of

midge, scud, bead head combinations out of desperation. I will admit

that there were people catching fish pretty regularly on the other side

so I am assuming that what is lacking is a certain amount of skill and

knowledge by the author. We fished till almost 6 that evening.

Friday we got to rocking chair about 10. Water was up to the point that

there was little bank or bar to walk and the clarity was fair. Stan

stayed at rocking chair and I decided to go up river and fish the bank

much as possible. I had a size 18 green flashback scud with a size 20

orange scud dropper. I caught 3 up from rocking chair about 200 yards

around a tree in the water. I kept using the same setup and caught

another couple at rebar. I continued up toward the dam and switched to

a double small midge rig with limited success. Once again, there were a

couple of guys at rebar and below on the other side absolutely slaying

them. Pride kept me from shouting across the river for what they were

using. On the way back downstream, I switched to a size 20 blue wing

olive and had a few takes fishing the slack water and eddy's.

Stan had good luck staying put but I'll let him report the particulars.

That is about it. Once again, thanks and we look forward to our next

getaway. Sincerely, Mike Pitchford

[Phil Lilley]

To add to Mike's report, we pretty much stayed with 6x tippet the whole

time. Water was fairly clear but not so clear that I felt 7x was

necessary. The water was on and off each day except for Wednesday (?)

morning. One generator seemed to provide good fish activity and red

midge pupa for 18 to 22 worked fairly well yielding fish from about 11

to 15 inches. One guy near me did land an 18 incher on the

aforementioned red pupa with a tungsten head. He tied his using larva

wrap. Some weight was required to get the midges down without the

tungsten head (which was what I was using). My flies had a red glass

bead head and worked well.

I tried streamers (wooly buggers, white marabou with peacock and muddler

minnows) to no avail, although I heard others say they were picking up

fish on a small (12-14) black bugger. I tried woollies in black with

furnace hackle, orange, and ginger, all weighted but caught nothing.

The combinations that worked for me were scuds with a San Juan worm in

tow (red or brown), Black zebra midges with copper or brass wire wrap

and bead heads. I caught several fish on pumpkin and partridge soft

hackles on Friday. The fish were midging pretty good for a couple of

hours after the water started to recede and the soft hackles were just

the ticket. In talking with some guys from Kansas City close to me on

the river (we were strung along the shoal downstream from the access at

the Rocking Chair) they also had luck with soft hackles in olive and

brown. I tie mine with a wire wrap, don't know about theirs. Bead head

midges seemed to work better than those without and red or black were

the preferred colors.

I tried a number of different scuds and the flashback varieties out

performed the others. Tried you "roo" scuds. I think I got one fish but

the flashback in gray to olive really caught fish.

Over the three days I only caught one brown about 15 inches. Everything

else was rainbows, all fat and strong.

We really enjoy your place and your fly shop is excellent with very fair

prices. We'll be back. Keep up the good work.

Fish more,

Stan