Not the brightest fish in the barrel...
On day three, we headed to a different tailwater that promised even better fishing than anything we had experienced thus far. After having fished this new tailwater, I can happily report that it is a little slice of fly fishing heaven. It featured an insane amount of fish, all large, healthy, and full of fight. It was not uncommon for their to be double, triple, and quadruple hookups going on at one time between my brother, the drift boats, and I. The guides on this river probably have one of the easiest jobs imaginable. It is literally so easy a caveman could do it...
The tailwater allowed insect life to proliferate in mind-boggling abundance. There was so much food subsurface that fish rarely rose to take any of the millions of bugs, tricos at this time of year, floating past. The river in this section is primarily a nymph fishery, although we did fool a few on dries when we switched tactics to dry-dropper rigs in the afternoons.
Midges and PMDs were on the menu underwater. Rainbows averaging 16" would crush size 18 to 22 flies on almost every solid drift. They fought like steelhead, leaping 6 feet into the air, running down current in fast riffles, wrapping around rocks/weeds and gator-rolling at the net. At the start, we lost close to 75% of the fish we hooked but we soon figured out the right angle to apply the pressure and our batting averages skyrocketed.
Even then, we still had several huge fish absolutely kick our ass. Tippet easily snapped, some hooks ended up getting destroyed, and a few just took off, leaving our lines limp and floating downstream. Although the fish were easy to hook, they definitely were not the easiest to bring to hand.
On our first day here, we literally fished a single long stretch for the entire day. We used 6wt switch rods for better control and it didn't get old. Every rainbow was unique, colored up, fat and healthy. We could not ask for anything more. Except maybe a hopper or streamer bite...
An uncrowded day at a popular stretch
Below average
Good one from fast water
Got spots?
One of the more memorable fish...
Taped out at 22"
Every fish was unique...
-Mark & Matt
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