Fishing Report 9/29/ 2007 & 9/30/2007

[John Berry]

I just spent two spectacular days wade fishing the Norfork River with clients. On Saturday, I had a young couple that had never fly fished. In the morning, we had a mini class at the River Ridge Inn (the nicest place on the Norfork)where they were staying. We covered equipment, knots, rigging, fly selection and technique. We then had a casting class. After a nice lunch, we waded into the Catch and Release section. It was not too crowded and we easily found some great water to fish. We landed a fifteen inch rainbow on the first cast. Over the course of the afternoon, we landed about thirty trout. The big fish were two eighteen rainbows (they each caught one). The hot flies were black zebra midges and red San Juan worms.

The next day I had three experienced anglers. We also waded into the Catch and Release section. Early on, we did well and caught plenty of fish on black zebra midges and pheasant tails (all size eighteen). Around noon the water started coming up. I moved my clients into safer water to fish the rise. We noted that the water did not come up much so we decided to stay and fish for the rest of the afternoon. We switched to olive woolly buggers and the fishing got red hot! We caught fish after fish and frequently had doubles and triples where everyone had a fish on at the same time. We finished the day with well over a hundred trout. The big fish was a nineteen inch rainbow and a big brown that got away. This is possibly the best day I have ever had on the Norfork for numbers.

[Danoinark]

John, were you using weighted or beadhead woolies? Getting them fairly deep in the higher water?

Dano

[John Berry]

Dano,

We used olive bead head woolies size twelve (I tie them small so that I can cast them with a four weight) with a bit of crystal flash in the tail. We ended up using a lot of lead on the leader. We were definately getting them down. A sink tip would have been easier but we just had floaters.