Magical day

[Lee Haskin]

With the fall weather FINALLY arriving, I decided to sneak away from work and head to the Stan. on Friday.

On the way I dropped into San Luis Res. for a couple of hours and found a small pod of fish at daybreak. Ended up with 6 fish with one around 6#. A 2 1/2" BYOB (brown, yellow, over blonde ) did the trick. Several conventional boat guys crowded in on me after the first 2 fish, and I had to check my backcast for about an hour. Grrrr.

Anyway, I finally arrived on the Stan around noon, and there was a good midge hatch (#18's and 20's) coming off with plenty of 14-18" browns and a few bows sipping them in. Not one other car or fisherman! I had the whole place to myself.
Amazing! Temps around 70 deg. Perfect in every way. The fall colors are starting to show too which really topped off the experience.
Later in the day the Mahogany duns showed up, as well as some October caddis. They were keying on the M. duns, and the action continued. What a blast!
I love it when the trout key on the bigger bugs. Makes a guy forget about stripers....for a while.

If this weather continues, you guys need to head for the hills! The dry fly action is incredible right now!!

Cheers,
Lee

[dtp916]

Sounds like skipping work was a smart move! Nice report, I remember fishing the Stan on a GBF fishout a long time ago and did very well . Only problem is I have no idea how to get to the Stan because it was so long ago.

James

Lee,

When you said Stan did you mean the stretch along Two Mile Bar down to Knights Ferry? That place is real popular.

[oonchie]

The Lower Stanislaus river is closed to fishing until Jan 1. Closed Oct 15th I think. That may be why there were no other cars. If you were fishing below the dam (by Knights Ferry, or 2 mile bar, etc) consider yourself lucky you did not receive a fine from DFG...

Closure for salmon and steelhead to do their thing..

-O

[Lee Haskin]

I was fishing much higher up in the mountains, many miles away from the closure.

Lee