It’s been an unbelievable month for BWO’s over here John. We have had a rainy month and the hatches have been extended and prolific. At times almost too prolific if that’s possible. It gets hard to focus on one fish at a time when there are 15 simultaneous rises within casting distance at any given time. March is usually Skwala time around here but I really haven’t even gotten around to fishing them consistently since the BWO’s have come off so strong.
These Browns have been trained well.
Fair warning. There are no pictures in this post.
The river I fish on my lunch breaks is about to blow. Rumors of a big release from the Dam starting this afternoon and then doubling again by the end of the week prompted me to take advantage yesterday of one of the few remaining days this spring I may get to fish it. Although if it goes much higher I may be able to break the Drift boat out a little early and get some of the rust off my rowing shoulders.
With the river already having bumped up from 30 cfs to 222 cfs in the last week and the water running a little off color I decided to fling some streamers and see what happened. I certainly wasn’t disappointed.
I fished a bank I have come to affectionately call “The Butcher Shop.” It is a great Streamer bank with a shallow gravel bar along most one side making it easy to wade along that side and throw big streamers to the protected far bank that drops off quickly into a nice trough with a lot of overhanging brush, exposed rocks, as well as other cover. And to top it off the current flows through there at just about the perfect speed.
I started up at the top of the run in a shorter run before it drops off into a minor riffle and then dumps into another long run that lasts about 100 yards. My first cast the Conehead Zonker I was fishing pulled across the current untouched, but as it swung below me and came into view I clearly saw the dark form of a large fish on it’s tail. I gave the fly a few twitches, but the big fish was not enticed and I watched the shadow dissipate back toward the center of the run. My heart was officially beating now. I do wonder if streamer fishing is something I should consider not doing alone, as I have had more heart stopping moments tugging big flies than any other type of fishing. I had several on this day and this was just the first.
A few moments later I learned, or should I say, relearned, a lesson I should have known…well okay…I knew better, but I failed to heed my better judgment. Never just assume that the 4x tippet that is already attached to your fly line is an OK choice, and for the sake of convenience ignore the nagging voice in the back of your head telling you to change that or you are going to regret it. Well that’s exactly what I did. With only an hour to fish and me itching to hit the river I decided to just tie the #4 Zonker on what was left of the leader already attached to my fly line, and soon I got the wake up call I needed. Off the bank came a hard crashing fish, he grabbed the fly and turned back to his lair in a flash, and I hardly even felt it. It was that quick, the separation of fly from the leader was swift and clean. Large fish smacking a moving fly on a tight line can make quick work of too light tippets. I humbly stood in the stream and did what I should have done 15 minutes before.
Back at it after re rigging a much stouter and shorter leader, I hit the short riffle between the long banks. Casting into eddies and pockets behind boulders along the far edge I was coming up empty for the first half, as I casted, and stepped downstream, working the bank throughly. At the bottom of the riffle there was a bigger eddy with a nice foam line that looked like a goo place for a nice trout to lay in ambush. The streamer landed perfectly at the head of the little pocket and I began the strip. The fly had just entered the faster water when the surface exploded and I clearly saw a beautiful buttery brown roll above the water and come down on top of my streamer. I have had this happen a couple times when fishing streamers, and every time I can hardly believe my eyes. I swear if I had a video camera and you could slow it down and zoom in on the fishes eyes, they would be glowing red. Sometimes these fish just get crazy mad. He grabbed the fly on the way down and I felt the heaviness for a couple seconds, but just like the other times I have had fish attack the fly like this, it was short lived. It seemed to be an attack out of anger rather than hunger, and that happens in fishing these meaty flies, but it didn’t help the thumping in my chest any.
It was only a few casts later when my fly swung across the bottom of the riffle that I felt the hard strike and the heavy weight of a nice fish that played a little too close with that fine line and managed to hook himself. One thing I will say, I have never had a fish that hit a streamer, just roll over and come to the net easily. These fish were mad before, and the sting of the hook takes that rage to a whole new level. I finally landed this fish and it was a very fat 20 inch Brown that was as healthy as I have seen this year on the river.
Time was running short on my lunch break at this point but there is still a pretty good chunk of bank left and I start moving quckly down the run, casting and stepping. Several more big shadows ghost up behind my fly as I bring it across the river, but none that are willing to take the plunge and grab a bite. Finally I came to a section with a lot of old dead branches hanging over and into the water, and in amongst them was a big nose rising methodically, probably to midges as I see them congregating along the current seam that feeds his little haven. It’s a tough lie, and he’s sipping dries, so I wonder how willing he would be to grab a streamer. It’s worth a try though. My cast hit just above the brambles, and I let my heavy fly sink and tumble with the current into the big fishes feeding lane. As it arrived in the zone I could no longer see the fish, or the fly in the murky water but I figured it was time to start stripping it out of there. As I began the strip I immediately met resistance and felt the heavy shake of a big Brown’s head. I managed to sneak him out of the bramble patch he was in without him wrapping me around a branch, and slugged it out with him in the middle of the current where fewer hazards existed. Finally a few moments later I was able to raise the big head and slip another nice trout into the mesh.
What a day. Nothing like the heart pounding action when the fish are mashing streamers.
Simply AWESOME!
No pictures needed, I can visualize all of that from your excellent descriptions! Well…maybe I WOULD like to see a picture of that fat 20-incher!
Ben, no pics needed. Your description and commentary were enough. Outstanding piece of work, thanks for sharing. Sounds like things are going to be a little dicey on that piece of water for a while; withdrawals are not very much fun - 
Kelly.
Aaaaaaahhhhhhh, I feel much better now…I was there, with you only, when I looked up, I didn’t see a nice relaxing view, I saw the bustling street outside my office. Thanks for the reprieve, even if there were no pictures.
Tight lines,
TT.
Well imagine my last report intertwined with these pictures, which happen to be from today, and it won’t be too far off.
Yes that’s right, I found out that flows were not going to increase until this afternoon so I made the official last run of the spring to the river to enjoy the last of the wade fishing for a while. Sure enough as of 6:30 the flows were bumped up but in the hours preceding I virtually ignored a massive BWO hatch in order to throw streamers at these fish. I don’t know if I would have done as well with BWO’s or better, but I do know that the fish were still thumping streamers and everyone I caught was a massive fish. And to top it off all fish came on a streamer I made up last year made completely of ring neck pheasant materials.
It was not a bad way to finish things up as I begin the wait until the waters drop back down to wadable flows again.
Ben, please excuse my whimpering… Great stuff!
Rich
Nice fish. Great report. How about throwing up a recipe for the fly?
KD,
Way to hammer them. Nice looking streamer, great looking browns.
REE
Well Lew I am not really good at recipes but I will do my best.
Hook: #4 Streamer hook
Tail: Ringneck Pheasant Marabou
Body: Ringneck Pheasant marabou tied in and wrapped with close tight wraps up the hook shank letting the strands flow. It takes a couple feathers usually.
Sides: I use the end of the almond shaped feathers or some of them are more heart shaped, I think they are on the back of the pheasant, tied in one on each side.
Throat: Found a long fibered webby feather (can’t remember where on the skin I got this one) and wrapped it for the flowing collar.
Head: Brass Cone
Like I said I my descriptions are lacking. I really like the coloring of the fluffy marabou feathers. I did learn there aren’t as many good long feathers as I wish though on a pheasant skin, as I only got a few flies tied before the pickings were slim. Could have just been the bird too.
I really liked how this fly was relatively easy to cast when wet, unlike some of the Bunny strip streamers which seem to get real heavy when soaked with water.
…the river is high and shall remain that way a while I assume. We floated it in the drift boat the other day and chucked streamers at the banks but these fish are still a bit shell shocked I am sure and we had no luck. Here are a few pics of the dam here and the amount of water they are letting loose.
You know man, I finally sat still long enough to go through this report, and now will stand to kick my own butt, what a great thread, I love browns now having caught a few of them, I wish they were more prevalent here…
Thanks for the pictures and report, I too can’t wait for run off to start let alone end!!!
Tight lines and screaming reels…
Are they expecting a big run-off this year and dumping the reservoirs in preparation? Cool pictures!
Yep, Big run off this year. They started dumping water from this reservoir the end of March, and it is showing no sign they will be able to slow it down anytime soon. The reservoir is basically full, and so they are matching the outflow to the inflow, which has been pretty high lately. The river is normally flowing around 200cfs from spring to fall, but with the high snow pack in the drainage the flows have been in the 5,000 to 10,000 cfs range for a solid month now, and looking at things I would guess it will be that way another month at least.
The down side is the lack of fishing has started to make me a bit cranky, but the silver lining is that I did get our garage cleaned. 
My reports have been seriously lacking this year. I have all kinds of excuses though. My main one is…I HAVEN’T BEEN FISHING! I have found out it is hard go file fishing reports when you don’t go fishing. High rivers and a busy life have made this a rough year on the fishing front, but my homewater did just recently round into shape, so that is at least one excuse down the drain. So without further ado how about a report.
Yes I went fishing, however now comes excuse number 2. There may be no pics in my reports for a while. My waterproof camera finally became not so waterproof while I was snorkeling a little rocky reef off the coast of West Maui a couple weeks ago. It’s time had come. It was an ancient Pentax Optio WP I have had for about 6 years. Now I am in the market but not in a hurry to replace it. So in the meantime I will bore you with words.
We floated the home river a couple days ago before they dropped it once again to the summer wadeable flows. It was a great time. At 600cfs the river makes a nice little float. We floated a 5 mile section and it took right about 5 hours. It was good to see the river, after a few months of willow ripping flows, back in shape, and seemingly recovering so quickly. I had my doubts a few times this spring. There were a lot of bugs out. Quite a few Yellow Sallies, Caddis, and a smattering of PMD’s, but when fishing from a drift boat my preference goes to big dries, or streamers. Since there were no real big bugs hatching, streamers it was. And we did very well. Every bank it seemed had several lookers who would swoop out for a glance, sometimes two glances, and maybe a nudge and just often enough one would take a good swipe at the streamer. It’s a blast to fish streamers from the bow of a drift boat and get to see all the action as a predatory brown lurches from his lair to take a whack at a big ball of fur on a hook. Overall we caught as many fish as I think I ever have caught in a 5 hour period on the river. Non stop action from put in to take out. There were quite a few spots with good numbers of rising fish, but not knowing how long it was going to take to float we didn’t do any stopping to work the risers. It was a great day and now that my excuses are dwindling maybe I will back to posting a few regular reports.
I was starting to worry about you. Glad you finally ran out of “excuses”. I hope this means we are in for more of your excellent reports.
Oh by the way, i’m pretty happy with my olympus stylus tough wp camera.
take care, Rich
Glad your river is FINALLY getting back to normal! The best is yet to come, I’m sure. Bummer about your Pentax!
I just purchased that very camera Rich, I am glad to see that you like it. And with that I am back in action.
I have been fishing quite a bit lately, but have not taken a camera with me fishing for the last 3 or 4 months. In some ways it was actually nice to just fish, and not concern myself with the camera. The flows dropped a couple months ago on my usual river, and it has been fishing fantastic. Then I have gotten a couple drift boat trips in on another local tailwater here that holds some piggy Bows. That has been fun.
So let the photos begin starting with the latest previously mentioned float trip down the river with fat rainbows. And by this pic I think you will see what I mean when I say these fish are pigs.
And then this morning it was back up on the Brown stream. The hoppers are out, and the fish are eating them, and that makes for a fun time. Finding those subtle risers tucked in tight to the bank, then punching a big old piece of foam into their wheelhouse and watching it get sucked down is about as much fun as you can have. This morning I spotted 4 fish lined up feeding under a willow bank, and was lucky enough to work my way up and go 4 for 4. That hardly ever happens for me. It’s hopper time!
More pics of big piggies! I’ve missed your reports & pics! Good to hear you’re still getting some good fishing done!
Saweeeeet ! Great to see you again. I’ve had my camera for a while now and i think it’s great.