Fishing Report

[Jeremy Hunt]

February 16th 2008 Taneycomo

I had a trip planned yesterday, but it got canceled because of the weather. However, I still fished and met a few guys from the forum. JD and Steve came down on Thursday so I knew they were down fishing. As soon as I pulled in the parking lot I saw Steve walking under the pavilion. It wasn’t raining yet so we sat under the pavilion and talked to several people before going fishing. I had a good time talking with all those people so if you’re reading this it’s nice meeting all of you.

We decided to go fish down below gauntlet hole to start out for the day. The reason for this was it was the only place that was open up top. Everything else was crowded. When we got down there I could tell the water was up just a bit from normal pool. They weren’t generating, but there’s a rock that sticks up out of the water just a little bit and I noticed it was under about four inches. That made the water a little different from what it is normally in the sense that it slowed down the current just a little bit. Usually the current is going faster because it’s skinnier water. Every time the water widens out it will slow it down just a little bit more. It still made for good fishing as I saw a ton of trout rising on midges.

I started out fishing what I had on the last time I went out with which was my famous egg pattern on a jig head (1/100) hook. I caught about five fish before breaking off. I was standing upstream and JD and Steve were fishing just below me about twenty feet down. JD started out fishing primrose and pearl and Steve was throwing the sculpin. I noticed JD picking up a few now and then and Steve really wasn’t doing so hot fishing sculpins. So when I broke off I started using a size 16 black zebra midge with a gold bead and copper wire for the rib and caught several fish right off the bat.

The difference in today’s fishing was what depth you were fishing midges. Of course midges seem to be working better then anything else and that’s kind of odd considering we didn’t have any sunshine and the conditions were ugly for midges to be so active in the water column. I’ve always thought fishing midges deeper was the key when fishing midge patterns in the rain. JD was fishing his midge just under the surface and I was fishing mine deep. I was catching three or four to his one and I wanted to prove a theory on where trout would prefer a midge in these kind of conditions. So we all rigged up differently and fishing a midge close to the bottom was key. I did switch over to a copper bead and they seem to like the gold better. Maybe it has something to do with seeing the gold bead over the copper. The gold is a little brighter then the copper so maybe the copper blends in better in the water and fewer fish are seeing go by. Not only that, but the water was a little murky so gold probably did stand out better then the copper.

We stayed down there for the majority of the time we were fishing because we caught so many fish. We did make our way down to the point walking with our drift and didn’t catch near as many as we did right where the water opens up form the gauntlet hole which is real shallow and narrow. It was definitely prime time in that one area and I did notice they were coming up to the surface more there then in calmer water as we got down to the big hole. We eventually got bored fishing that area and I’m on this kick fishing the opposite side up close to the cable. it’s been fishing really well and there’s hardly nobody ever fishing it so it makes for less pressure and those trout don’t see too many patterns go by so they are on the curious side. We caught a few fish on midges, but we weren’t there long enough to really figure out why because the rain came and it was a down poor. I knew when that time came it was time to call it a day. We did switch over to an egg and caught a few as we were walking out of the river. We then decided to go back and tie some flies at my house. I’ve been working on mouse patterns with snowshoe rabbit feet and carabou. And I must say they look great!! Should have those up in the next day or two along with a few other patterns I’ve been working on. So be looking for that.

[drew03cmc]

Nice report Jeremy! I am looking to hopefully get down to the midwest's #1 trophy factory sometime this spring...

[zsmith62]

Noticed that you mentioned mouse patterns... I actually experimented with them about a year ago and found that if you take a large, straight shanked bass hook, like the ones used for soft plastics, along with some leather lacing for a tail and a strip of that faux fur found at craft stores to wrap around the hook until you have a good body profile. Had a lot of success using them on bass while visiting michigan, and that the synthetic fur will actually stay on top better than I thought, and may be more durable/water resistant than rabbit hair.

I'm curious to see how others do it...Are you using them at night?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I get what your saying. I'll have to try that. These ones tied with snowshoe rabbit look the best out of all the mouse patterns I’ve tied. And here lately I've been tying all types of patterns with rabbit. I guess you could say that's my thing right now. We go through phases and this is mine at the moment. This mouse is tied with close cell foam for the body and I really found that mouse patterns that are submerged work better for big browns at night because they form a wake better then flies that ride higher on the water. So I guess you could say I’m experimenting with it. I also like caribou mouse as well. Deer hair mouse are my least favorite. I used to live in Michigan and lived right on the lake so I got to fly fish for bass pretty much everyday. I miss it and those bass love mouse patterns. I would throw mine on the bank and then scoot it in the water. They would hit it best when I did that technique. I would also throw poppers on boats and then let them fall from the boat that would sit under boat docks.

The best way I found to catch bigger bass was let it sit for five minutes without moving it and catch some of the biggest bass I’ve ever caught in my life. They would be underneath it and I guess they couldn’t take it and would eventually hit it. I read it in an article so I tried it and it worked like a charm.

You got any pictures of the mouse your talking about.

Here’s the ones I’ve been playing with. Two are caribou and the other two are the snowshoe rabbit.