A/R Report 9/23

[Garrett S]

Caught these 2 smolts swinging a size 14 birds nest. I know not very big but they put a pretty good bend in the 5wt. :)

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4754/dscn0166b.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8046/dscn0165zm.jpg

[Darian]

Hey Guppy,.... Fish are fish. Good catch and photos. :D :D

[Scott V]

I am glad to see you are out there fishing, keep up the good work. A smaller net will make the fish look bigger.

[SHigSpeed]

I am glad to see you are out there fishing, keep up the good work. A smaller net will make the fish look bigger.

That of you can buy a SHigSpeed Special measure net with the inches screened in half-inch increments! :)

_SHig

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Hi Guppy

thanks for posting those nice photos.



I wonder if we used a little larger fly would we bring up larger fish?

I too have been using lots of caddis pupa in size #12/14 for many year in the lower American River because they seem to produce more fish.

Maybe we should try going out earlier in the AM with a #8/10 black Wooley Bugger on a floating line?

PS: Be sure to have a Steelhead punch card and pinch down your barbs.

[Kevin Goding]

Don't worry gup, I think the majority of the run is fish that size haha, I catch more steelies that size than the adults. I just look at it this way, you're catching a trout in the middle of Sacramento, which is pretty special IMO.

[jlmelend]

Nice job, gup. Glad to see you getting out there. I caught quite a few smolts in the lower river last week dry-line swinging a mossback. They wouldn't hit my soft hackle! Good news was that all but one of the smolts I caught had intact adipose fins! I wonder if it's because wild fish are more aggressive despite these high temps, or could we be lucky enough to have a resurgent spawn of wild fish?

[Jgoding]

Oddly enough I've found that even the smolts will be fairly selective at times. When I guage the potential effectiveness of my new flies they can be a perfect test as they're very abundant at times and are relatively easier to catch. Not to say that it's an apples to apples comparison but if there are 10 smolts working an area and you cast in there and they won't even touch your flies then I assume it's time to change it up. On the flip-side, if they're smashing your flies I think that's a pretty good sign you have a pattern that resembles whatever they're keying in on.

[SHigSpeed]

Nice job, gup. Glad to see you getting out there. I caught quite a few smolts in the lower river last week dry-line swinging a mossback. They wouldn't hit my soft hackle! Good news was that all but one of the smolts I caught had intact adipose fins! I wonder if it's because wild fish are more aggressive despite these high temps, or could we be lucky enough to have a resurgent spawn of wild fish?

I too tried this weekend swinging soft hackles which are usually productive for me and striking out. What's a mossback? :)

_SHig

[Fochetti]

Shig,

Check out this thread, there is a pic of one, just scroll down a few posts.

http://www.kiene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17629

Just realized you were most likely messing around with the smiley face after your post.

[SHigSpeed]

What the heck is that moss back trying to be?

I'll have to tie a few...

_SHig

[Kevin Goding]

Well from an entomological standpoint, most insects the fish are going to encounter in the water column are functionally the same. That fly there could look like a lot of things. Hackles usually represent legs, whether they're splayed out on the surface like a dry fly, or writhing around like long soft hackles on a wet fly. Peacock material usually represents a terrestrial though, a shiny black/blue/green hard exoskeleton like a beetle or ant. Very few aquatic nymphs/larvae are a shiny dark color. Lastly, the tail feather could represent the wings sticking out from under a beetles wing case or the tail of an aquatic nymph, many damsel and mayflies have short stout abdominal filaments. The flash, I would interpret as air bubbles trapped on the setae of a terrestrial insect that's been dragged into the water column, that have reflective properties.

I was always under the impression soft hackle flies mimicked emergers or terrestrials in the water column, something with writhing legs and air bubbles on its body moving around. During a hatch things like mayflies and caddisflies have to move from the bottom substrate to the surface to emerge, and that's what a lot of these flies mimic IMO. I've caught a lot of finning trout on a match the hatch dry fly pattern you tie in a soft hackle pattern with some tinsel/flash mixed in, fished subsurface stripped very slowly through the water column.