Fall River, Memorial Day Weekend

[JerryInLodi]

I fished Fall River on Friday and Sunday. A sparse infrequens hatch (PMD) came off both days from about 9:30 till 1:30. Fish were keying on both the nymphs before the hatch and the adults once the hatch was in full swing.

Lots of small fish and few large ones both seen and hooked.

Usually one can see many large fish cruising while heading up river from CalTrout. This year, no such luck.

[Ffdoc]

Thanks for the post. I was a little concerned when I fished it last year. I managed to catch my share of fish as usual but it seemed like the big pods of fish we usually see were few and far between compared to past trips. The daytime hatches seemd a bit disappointing too. some of the locals seemed to think the river was in decline a bit. I have been fishing that river every year around the end of June for about 15 years now and love that place. I hope it is not in decline as the locals seem to sugggest.

Ffdoc

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

A good friend just got back from his annual 10 days on the Fall River at the Spinner Fall Lodge (was Rick's). He is a student of the "Bob Quigley school of fly fishing". That means he is a 'classy fly fisher'.

He said he fished lots of #16 PMD spinners and some Trico spinners on 6x and 7x tippet depending on the wind.

Most fishing was from just above the lodge and mostly downstream as the river is lower this year.

He said the bigger fish were running 16 to 22 inches which is larger than normal.

He said it looks like 90% of the anglers up there are fishing under water now with the surface anglers a dieing breed? He says he only fishes on top to working fish and did very well.

We learned to fish up there in the 1970s from Bob Quigley when no one fished anything but on top except for when they swung Zug Bugs in the evening on a sinktip. Indicators were not invented yet. Wow..what did we do without them?

[Charlie S]

Back in those days, and before, we learned to fish without bobicators when fishing nymphs, and with dries when the fish were rising. How many remember when Spinner Lodge, and Rick's was Arletta's and the story behind that? There was some really tremendous fishing in the late 50's and 60's up there.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

We started going up there in the '70s when Bob Quigley had a little fly shop downstairs at "Rick's Lodge", now the "Spinner Fall Lodge" .

My old friend Neil Hansen went there back when it was called "Arleta's".