Hello
friends and thanks for checking in at the O’Grady Fly Fishing Adventures. I can’t
tell you how many times over the last few weeks I have answered the shop phone
and I have heard the exact same questions. The first is, how is the tailwater
fishing and the second is how is the clarity. Well hopefully by the blog title
you can see that our river has really been a mixed bag as of late.
First, I wanted to talk a little about
the good. If you are a long-time reader than you know that January is far from
my favorite time of the year to fish. I used to complain that the bait guys
killed our fish and the river will never be the same. And almost every year at
around the 10th or 11th of February our bows would begin
to poke their heads out and they would be everywhere and then I would get
frustrated because with that many fish, how the heck am I not catching fish on
every cast. Well this is the good, a few weeks ago I was walking the river and
I began to see shadows. At first I just figured that it was my eyes playing
tricks on me(it is January), but after drifting past a few the hallucinations I
realized that they put up a pretty good fight. Now over the last week or so, I
have really seen a bunch of fish coming out of hiding.
Now the bad, as with every year, just
because I can see the fish, doesn’t mean they are easily catchable. The other
day I had a guide trip out and I set a client up in a spot and then got above
him to watch. The first 10 feet of the drift was perfect and just as we were
nearing the fish I saw a small belly in the line and the indicator drug just a
tad and the fish just moved out. Yep, they are super spooky.
Now some good, as the afternoon sets
in we have been seeing some great midge hatches and the surface feeding has
been fantastic. Not the piggies of the A.M. but the little guys and even though
they are small, don’t think of them as dumb.
Now some bad, this upcoming weekend I’m
guessing will be our busiest weekend of the year. I guess the football watchers
have nothing better to do and will be at the river. Two years ago on the
Saturday before the SB one of our guides counted 36 anglers between Valco
bridge and Tree Bend. Last year I remember trying to find a spot on Sunday with
two clients and it was nearly impossible.
So, as you can see there is some good
and some bad going on, on our river now. One fisherman will come in at the end
of the day and say fishing is awful and the next will say that he just caught
the fish of his life. If you are one of the fishermen that are really
frustrated than maybe now would be a great time to invest in a guide trip.
Figure out how to see fish and the maybe see what it takes to catch them. Weekends
are pretty busy but weekdays can be good. Fish today were carefully stalked and
caught on a size 22 J-bomb and the smaller fish were tricked on size 24 Tube
Wings and Ninjas. As always, Connell, Cat, Winston, Alexander Graham Bell, and
The Drift Fly Shop want to thank you for reading…..
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