Weber and Nymphing in General

[TheCanadian]

So I fished the Weber on Saturday from about 12-4pm, up below the Rockport dam in Wanship. I KNOW there are a lot of fish in there, however I don't know what was going on on Saturday. There was a THICK midge hatch, and there were midges all over the water for the entire time I was there. I did not see a single fish rise in the 4 hours. I threw everything in my wet fly box at them. Emergers, every color/style nymph, scuds, WD-40's, caddis, san juans, pheasant tails. Checking rocks I found nothing but caddis, scuds, and pheasant tails. I had great drifts all day long, and enought weight for legitimate presentations/approaches in EVERY hole.

Frustrated! Not a single fish, bite, or hookup of any sort on any nymphs. I finally threw on a streamer in the last 10 minutes and caught a nice 18 inch brown before heading home, to at least shake off the skunk.

Talked to a couple of guys on the way out at the mini-mart there in Wanship, and they'd been tossing midges all day and never caught a single fish.


Anyone more familiar with the area, that knows what's going on? Did the couple of days of warm and sunny weather slow things down? I mean I didn't see a single fish all day, less the one I caught at the end. I have done well every other time I have hit that area, but this was my first time fishing it in the winter season.


Had a good time, but it was definitely a humbling fishing experience for me. I'm willing to listen to any suggesstions/recommendations anyone might have for that area, or nymphing in general.



Let's hear it....
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[riverdog]

There will always be days like that. Sometimes in the winter and spring the fish in the weber seem to ignore the midge hatch altogether and you should move on to something else as well. I will switch over to something else such as a streamer after an hour or so. If you throw everything at them and it's still slow move to another location. I don't know about everyone else but I seem to catch fish much more consistently below echo than above it this time of year so 80% of the time I just start below the damn and I find myself changing locations a lot less than if I started above it. That isn't to say you can't have good days above it.
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[HFT]

Here is a never fail me pattern for that section of the river. very simple pattern.
Larva lace caddis
14 scud hook
black thread
chartreuse V-rib
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[match-hatch]

My family has a house below the dam on the river and it seems like the fish only come up for the caddis hatch. I've had some luck with sub-surface patterns fished one or two inches down. When nothing else works I use a latex nymph, and pick up a white fish.
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[flygoddess]

[black][size 3]I have a question for you. A while back, there was a place to pull off the Freeway right at the mouth of the stream going into Echo. I guess it would be the South West corner. Anyway, I could fish under the the freeway bridge and there were some nice fish there. Is that still accessible?[/size][/black]
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[HFT]

you can't park on the freeway any more but go a little farther to the exit turn right the road will turn right again there is a fisherman pull out there with a ladder over the fence. you can access the area from there.
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[flygoddess]

[black][size 3]Thanks James. Maybe this weekend.[/size][/black]
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[martymcfly]

Get there early. I caught a nice Rainbow there last week. When I got there I was the only fisherman around. I fished for a couple of hours, only covering about 1/2 mile from the freeway bridge upstream. There were tons of midges on the water but nothing was coming up. I tried several streamer patterns, san juan worms, egg patterns and copper johns with no success. I switched to a peak colored scud and had 4 misses in short succession before landing the rainbow. All in all it was pretty slow but I have taken some big fish on that stretch. When I got off the river there was a fisherman hatch. I looked back over the ground I had covered and there were fishermen in every hole I had fished.
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[FLTFLIPPR]

I fished the weber wenesday. fished above and below echo. caught 4 fish above and 4 fish below. wd40 , and pink, or salmon scuds worked well also picked up 2 on a black beadhead bugger. Almost all the fish were in deep fast water.
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