ampersat
01-04-2009, 07:26 PM
Headed out to a beautiful sunrise. Roads were slick with frost. Broke the truck loose once that wasn't on purpose, which had me on point for the rest of my drive. I stopped off for pics of the water at Gordon Creek. Folks who have fished or floated this area will be interested in this:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SWF4OvFfekI/AAAAAAAABeM/jpC3Upt8pJI/s800/IMG_2951.jpg
See where the big rock is now? I only spotted it afterwards in the pics.
Got where I was going and suited up. The trail was pretty messy with downed trees and shrubs; likely your favorite trail is 'impacted' too. Was a little surprised that there was another rig parked where I was headed; ran into him on his way out. Spey guy said the water didn't look too good; 'bait show' was my reply.
Try this the next time you go out. When you look at the water, don't look at the water (young jedi :o); look past the water and observe the water. When you see the 'shiny spots', you will have found holding water. It's in the back eddies, runs, around rocks but it's not always in the eddies, the runs or the rocks. The river levels will determine where these slicks are. They show the edges of current seams, boils and all the other spots that steelies like to hold.
But, reading the water doesn't start at the river at all; it starts with knowledge of your prey. Where are fish going to hold in a river that's running pretty hard with low visibility? They're going to hold on the edges and the back eddies. Where will they hold in full sun with high visibility? The conditions you face will determine the holding water. But spotting those slicks amid the chaos is pretty key in my opinion.
Reading the river temperature, I settled on working the slowest currents I could find. I'd toss to a hard eddy now and then just to see if something might be hiding in there, but mostly I worked the soft edges. And I used eggs. Since visibility was limited, I figured to work on their sense of smell.
I ended the day with a rather disappointing hookup with a downstream summer. She was probably a 3 salt fish and definitely spawned out as the anal fin looked like raw meat. She fought like an old dishrag.
But that wasn't the point of today. I was happy to have hooked up on a day when most fishers stayed and watched football (I caught most of the second game).
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SWF4OvFfekI/AAAAAAAABeM/jpC3Upt8pJI/s800/IMG_2951.jpg
See where the big rock is now? I only spotted it afterwards in the pics.
Got where I was going and suited up. The trail was pretty messy with downed trees and shrubs; likely your favorite trail is 'impacted' too. Was a little surprised that there was another rig parked where I was headed; ran into him on his way out. Spey guy said the water didn't look too good; 'bait show' was my reply.
Try this the next time you go out. When you look at the water, don't look at the water (young jedi :o); look past the water and observe the water. When you see the 'shiny spots', you will have found holding water. It's in the back eddies, runs, around rocks but it's not always in the eddies, the runs or the rocks. The river levels will determine where these slicks are. They show the edges of current seams, boils and all the other spots that steelies like to hold.
But, reading the water doesn't start at the river at all; it starts with knowledge of your prey. Where are fish going to hold in a river that's running pretty hard with low visibility? They're going to hold on the edges and the back eddies. Where will they hold in full sun with high visibility? The conditions you face will determine the holding water. But spotting those slicks amid the chaos is pretty key in my opinion.
Reading the river temperature, I settled on working the slowest currents I could find. I'd toss to a hard eddy now and then just to see if something might be hiding in there, but mostly I worked the soft edges. And I used eggs. Since visibility was limited, I figured to work on their sense of smell.
I ended the day with a rather disappointing hookup with a downstream summer. She was probably a 3 salt fish and definitely spawned out as the anal fin looked like raw meat. She fought like an old dishrag.
But that wasn't the point of today. I was happy to have hooked up on a day when most fishers stayed and watched football (I caught most of the second game).