01-24-2011, 11:21 PM
Over the weekend my friend and I took a little time off to head up to cascade for a few days. We INTENDED to try ice fishing. However, both being new to fly fishing, we brought fly rods, you know, just in case. Needless to say, we didn't drill a single hole but fished a lot.
We were fishing the N. fork of the Payette near town. Tackle Tom, the local guy, suggested trout be targeted at the new whitewater park being constructed near town. We were off. The water consisted of a lot of what I thought we'd want. Good flows with some riffles, some deep pools after small rapid areas, several rocks to hang out behind, I thought it would work great. There were a lot of small gnats all over the surface, but I never saw a fish here targeting them. I fished a little on the surface, then switched to a variety of nymphs and streamers. Nothing. Being brand new to the sport, this didn't surprise me that much.
Later, we decided to try whitefish as we'd heard there were a lot in the area and just wanted to catch something so we went back to the tackle shop for any insight on where to find them. The owner directed us towards a large portion of the river that was straight, sandy bottom, flat water with no real cover or rocks. Few logs on the shore in a couple places, not much else. We fished for an hour to no avail. Some bait fishermen showed up a couple hundred yards upstream from us and started nailing 'em. We saw huge schools we thought were whitefish but couldn't tell for sure. After a while, and the bait guys still nailing them, one guy's wife and 8 yoa daughter showed up and started nailing 'em while we kept getting a right shoulder workout and not much else. Was fun to watch the little girl catch some fish at least.
Finally curiosity got the best of me and I walked over just to see if they had any input that might help us out. They were using worms but said that any sinking fly with red on it ought to work. They also said they were catching almost exclusively 'bows. I didn't have anything with red in the fly box that day and we continued not catching anything no matter what we tried.
Went back to the hotel and found out that I did have some red materials in my fly tying box (I'm pretty new to tying, too). Out of desperation I made up some flies on a narrow straight shanked size 16 hook. Black thread around a small piece of lead to get it down, red hair for a tail, black dubbing for a body with a piece of thin red string for ribbing. I can't think of what it would have looked like but I was desperate. Also, being new, we'd lost all of the yarn indicators I had. Hmmm... OK, here's what I'll do. Big old hook that was, for some reason, in my dad's tying box. Lots of Olive dubbing and a big old hackle feather wrapped the full length. Put some more red hair as a post to make it visible. DIdn't think it looked like anything, but figured we'd douse it in flotant and tie off using it as an obvious indicator. It obviously wouldn't be useful for anything else.
Next morning fish were feeding on the surface at the same area the bait guys were lucky the day before (whoo hoo). My buddy tried my combo of "flotant fly" over "red bug" hoping to get lucky. Booger did. On the floatant fly. Big old 14 7/8" 'bow. His first fish on a fly rod. I was happy for him but oh so
.
I got a bite later on on a small bwo, but my real had iced up, I accidentally gave the fish some slack while trying to solve my problem and the fish did what the do well. Buddy decided to try fishing a worm on the river with his ice fishing pole. It was funny until he caught two more rainbows while I caught nothing. Eh, still a good day of fishing.
So my questions to the multitudes who are smarter than me: Why would the fish be hanging out in a flat, constant stream w/ no cover when there were other spots with cover nearby? What the heck could that nice trout have thought my freak show of a fly was?
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We were fishing the N. fork of the Payette near town. Tackle Tom, the local guy, suggested trout be targeted at the new whitewater park being constructed near town. We were off. The water consisted of a lot of what I thought we'd want. Good flows with some riffles, some deep pools after small rapid areas, several rocks to hang out behind, I thought it would work great. There were a lot of small gnats all over the surface, but I never saw a fish here targeting them. I fished a little on the surface, then switched to a variety of nymphs and streamers. Nothing. Being brand new to the sport, this didn't surprise me that much.
Later, we decided to try whitefish as we'd heard there were a lot in the area and just wanted to catch something so we went back to the tackle shop for any insight on where to find them. The owner directed us towards a large portion of the river that was straight, sandy bottom, flat water with no real cover or rocks. Few logs on the shore in a couple places, not much else. We fished for an hour to no avail. Some bait fishermen showed up a couple hundred yards upstream from us and started nailing 'em. We saw huge schools we thought were whitefish but couldn't tell for sure. After a while, and the bait guys still nailing them, one guy's wife and 8 yoa daughter showed up and started nailing 'em while we kept getting a right shoulder workout and not much else. Was fun to watch the little girl catch some fish at least.
Finally curiosity got the best of me and I walked over just to see if they had any input that might help us out. They were using worms but said that any sinking fly with red on it ought to work. They also said they were catching almost exclusively 'bows. I didn't have anything with red in the fly box that day and we continued not catching anything no matter what we tried.
Went back to the hotel and found out that I did have some red materials in my fly tying box (I'm pretty new to tying, too). Out of desperation I made up some flies on a narrow straight shanked size 16 hook. Black thread around a small piece of lead to get it down, red hair for a tail, black dubbing for a body with a piece of thin red string for ribbing. I can't think of what it would have looked like but I was desperate. Also, being new, we'd lost all of the yarn indicators I had. Hmmm... OK, here's what I'll do. Big old hook that was, for some reason, in my dad's tying box. Lots of Olive dubbing and a big old hackle feather wrapped the full length. Put some more red hair as a post to make it visible. DIdn't think it looked like anything, but figured we'd douse it in flotant and tie off using it as an obvious indicator. It obviously wouldn't be useful for anything else.
Next morning fish were feeding on the surface at the same area the bait guys were lucky the day before (whoo hoo). My buddy tried my combo of "flotant fly" over "red bug" hoping to get lucky. Booger did. On the floatant fly. Big old 14 7/8" 'bow. His first fish on a fly rod. I was happy for him but oh so
.I got a bite later on on a small bwo, but my real had iced up, I accidentally gave the fish some slack while trying to solve my problem and the fish did what the do well. Buddy decided to try fishing a worm on the river with his ice fishing pole. It was funny until he caught two more rainbows while I caught nothing. Eh, still a good day of fishing.
So my questions to the multitudes who are smarter than me: Why would the fish be hanging out in a flat, constant stream w/ no cover when there were other spots with cover nearby? What the heck could that nice trout have thought my freak show of a fly was?
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