Secret River report!

[MSP]

Fished a secret river today about 20 miles east of Marysville. The problem with secret rivers is they are the one's that keep their secrets! Did manage a nice fish on a Fox Pupah and a 10"er on a dry. Saw a few fish rising, but not much in insect life other that the millions of Stonefly husks littered all over the rocks. Didn't seem to like the ones I threw Only saw one adult. Fished 1:00 - 4:30 so didn't expect too much on top. River is still high but very fishable. Lots of current breaks along the shorelines. I think I may go back

[SullyTM]

MSP...Maybe if I Chinese water torture you, you'll give up the information on the secret spot...Good lookin' fish Yes, I'm jeolous Thom

[2short]

Man! That's a cool photo! Beautiful fish.
2short
PS I'm curently drawing a twenty mile radius around M-ville on my map.

[MSP]

Take highway 20 east until you hit a bridge. You can't miss it, but don't tell anyone Shhhhhhh!

[Hairstacker]

Yep, very nice rainbow and beautiful picture! Good for you Mike!

[DonCooksey]

I thought I recognized the rock in that photo, but I think it was quite a bit further upstream last year... Nice fish! That looks like a pretty good size split shot on the leader above the fish. I've also found that using one larger split shot to get the flies down in fast water like this, rather than two or three small split shot, is more convenient and less likely to tangle. Well, at least it seems to reduce the frequency of tangles, which seem to happen spontaneously no matter how careful I am.

[MSP]

Actually Don if you look close you will 2 3/0 split shots on there. I'm with you I quit using BB's in these valley rivers and went to the 3/0 sized. Definately easier to manage using fewer.

[DonCooksey]

Mike:

Yes, I see the second split shot now. On a similar "secret river," I have been using one 3/0 and a heavily-weighted big nymph or yuk bug as the lead fly above a small nymph. I must be getting down to the bottom, based on the amount of sticks and branches that I've dragged up. Once, a drift boat with three fishermen floated by while I slowly dragged up a big branch from the bottom. I was not really intending to prolong the retrieve, but I had fairly light tippet and was trying to recover my flies. From their cheering and encouraging words, they apparently thought I had a big fish on. I was busy, so who was I to correct them? Fortunately, they were around the bend by the time I got the branch out of the water. As I threw the branch up onto the bank, I actually felt a little guilty and wondered if I should have released it back to the river for another to have fun with...

[MSP]

Funny Don, the things you can drag up when dredging. Hopefully their will be some suface activity soon, maybe there is now and I'm just not there at the right times Someday I will be