Thursday - June 26

A little bit of shower early this morning and some decent cloud cover for half the day. That was good because they didn't run water until sometime around 3 PM today despite the schedule showing Noon! But that worked out OK actually as the Jason showed up at River Ridge about 1:30 this afternoon with a load of fresh fish!

<<<<<    The last of fresh fish going in for of the 2007-08 season! Over a thousand!

Water temperature at the time was a very safe 67° and the fish settled in quite well and started moving about the pool immediately! There were only about half a dozen fish that didn't survive the trip - not bad for a load making the 5 1/2 hour trip from the Spring River Hatchery!

So the last load of the season is in and we're going to see a lot of high water in the next week (at least we're scheduled to) so these fish should spread nicely in the upper mile and a half! Not to mention the huge number of fish currently residing at Riverside! By September of last season we were still finding fish downstream of River Ridge! The late season stockings have really worked quite well in recent years!

I stopped in at Riverside abut mid-day just to see if I could get a few fish on before the generation started up! Water at the Park at 11:30 was still a very nice 63° with a great breeze blowing around the Flat and the fish were pretty dog-gone happy! Of course when the siren didn't go off a few minutes before Noon I got to fish a bit longer before I headed down to River Ridge to check in on the stocking.

Sometimes it's just really nice around here! >>>>>

Suffice it to say that I had a lot of fun with half a dozen or so fish in about an hour! I mean ripping line off the reel, three foot vertical jumps! The works! There were pods of five to ten fish moving about the Flat and you just had to spot them and get the fly in front of them on just on the edge! Very often, they were just 15 feet from me! That's too much fun!

If anyone is interested, I had a cancellation for Saturday! Might be a really good chance to get in some pretty great fishing! e-mail me real quick if you want to take that spot!!!

Next week it looks like the mornings are going to be short until Friday! Of course that's the 4th Of July and I suspect there's going to be a lot of "playing about" on the river Friday and Saturday! They're scheduled to open up each morning at 9:00 till 8:00 PM Monday thru Wednesday - Thursday looks like 10 AM to 7 PM with "zeros" Friday thru Sunday! Let's hope we have some cloud cover and rain for the weekend!

I'm looking forward to a good late season! Get the fine stuff out!

 Back Cast

Saturday - June 21

Longest day of the year, the official beginning of summer... But it sure felt more like September 21 out there today, particularly just now, this evening!

And I saw today, also, that apparently EVERYONE took my suggestion to stay away from Saturday mornings to heart. There was no one at Riverside all morning through at least noon! Ya'll missed a good morning! And a really decent Prime Time tonight as well! But first...

Yesterday - Friday - I hooked up with Jim Brady (Shreveport, LA) for a fun morning as he used one of his e-Bay trips he's acquired! We tweaked the casting a little and worked on a couple of things that were causing Jim some questions and then got a way from the park for a bit since he had already been throwing there on Thursday evening! Actually he said he had some nice fishing Thursday with quite a few fish landed!

Jim Brady checks the leader to line connection as he gets ready to land a decent fish! >>>>>

I was a little curious about some of the water downstream since we had quite a bit of overcast from the front sliding through and some showers early in the morning! I thought the fish might be feeling better about their environment and we might take advantage of it. I saw on the RiverGages.com site that we did have a little generation on Wednesday afternoon. Hopefully at the behest of the AGFC Trout folks! And I hoped that it put a little cool water into some of the deep holes.

We worked our way down to the Big Rock Hole and got into quite a few nice fish in the stretch mostly on a Long Creek, but I think we threw a Killer Cahill in the shallower water too. I've slept since then, but not enough!

The important thing about fishing really cold water in the winter and warm water and bright light in the summer is getting the fly right in front of the fish. And this time of year they can be really concentrated in the deepest nooks and crannies. Everytime Jim got the right location, there were takes down in the deep somewhere!

We actually had quite a bit of action, Longeared Sunfish not withstanding (although Jim did get a couple of nice ones), and even a few bites from some smallmouth! I don't know that he landed that many trout, but there were a good number of trout on the line throughout the morning! Including one in the Big Rock Hole that dragged him upstream for a ways and then wrapped the leader around a branch in the deep! Once we had determined that the fish was no longer attached it was break-off time and back to another Long Creek!

All in all, a pretty decent and educational morning! And nice to know there's still a quantity of fish down at the Big Rock making it worth the effort!

This Morning - I headed up to Riverside just to enjoy the nice weather and coolish northerly breeze! The water was 63° when I stepped in and that breeze almost gave you a hint of a chill! Not bad for the first full day of summer! And they're still predicting 62° in the morning!!! I guess I'll have to take advantage of that too if no one else wants to fish tomorrow!

<<<<<   Nice fish from the Big Rock Hole...

There, literally, was NO ONE else at Riverside. Ya'll been paying too much attention to what I say and missed out on a really nice morning to be fishing! And the fish were real happy with that northerly breeze too. Landed a dozen or so with a Griffith's, but only in the lower half of the Flat. I worked my way down from The Trough without so much as a hint of a tail in sight! But once I got closer to the Wall the fish were really concentrated in the usual places. And I had a couple of 12 inchers that ripped away 15 or so yards of line easily!

Throwing a Long Creek deep into the Wall Hole was pretty darn effective as well! If I let it drift long enough I got strikes on just about every delivery! Again, the wind was perfect, out of the north and the chop was carrying the fly right down to the fish! Just had to keep a tight line so that none of the fish could inhale the fly! It was another fun morning, for me at least!!!

I went back to Riverside about 8 PM tonight and fished for an hour or so. As I walked down to the water it was clear that the fish were very active and all over the Flat this time! Even though I saw only a couple of mayflies "hover" about in Prime Time fashion, and get eaten out of mid-air by the way, the obvious insects, again this evening, were the No-See-Ums biting my legs, and the fish were biting them back for me! The second dominant bugs were the Caddis fluttering about the edges!

At first I threw a Griffith's again, but as the Caddis were quite evident I went ahead and tied on a small Smidge and had classic Prime Time action, including running fish and several strikes on the landings!

It was a lot of activity for an hours worth of fishing! The water at 8 PM was already 65° and the fish were enjoying that as much as me - maybe more! A far cry from last weekend when it was still in the low 70's at the same time! I did also notice that the water is clearer this week than it has been since the floods in the spring - at least up in the park. The Big Rock Hole was still noticeably dingy yesterday, but nothing like it has been! I wonder if the lake has finally stabilized and is settling out. At least today, the river is starting to look "summer clear"...

Get your 7X tippet ready!

Good news for next week! We're looking at generation from Noon to 8 PM every weekday except Tuesday for no apparent reason! The evenings should be awesome - the mornings maybe even better! We'll have fresh water everyday which should make the river downstream fish really nicely! I hope we get to have that pattern or something similar the rest of the summer! The lake is actually above flood pool right now - 548.17' - so there is plenty of water up there to run! ANd there are rumors that we may get that summer batch of fish in next week. I'll let ya'll know if that happens!

 Back Cast

Wednesday - June 11

Got together with Tim Boettger (Hot Springs, AR) on a return trip for him. We got out just as the breeze was trying to get started and fish were still enjoying a little cloud cover.

Of course the first thing I wanted to see was just how many fish had bought it overnight from eating all the ant yesterday! It wasn't quite as bad as I had anticipated. We did see probably a couple of dozen dead fish right in the Flat and up the Trough. We also found several down in the Sycamore Run and Spectator Hole. It's a sad thing to see any dead fish in the river, but there's not a thing we can do about it. Ant hatches are going to happen and fish are going to pay the price for enjoying them so much!

But still, considering the intensity of the hatch and the ensuing feeding frenzy, I feel somewhat OK about the number of affected fish. It could have been a lot worse! We've had several ant hatches and fish kills over the years and the worst one was actually in September when we lost several dozen fish in the Park alone due to the Wood Ants that came out during a thunderstorm.

Tim Boettger braces himself for another ambitious run after the slosh! >>>>>

Possibly, the stress of the water temperatures in September combined with the ant poisioning could have accounted for the bigger loss of fish. Maybe the Wood Ants are more lethal even though they were half the size of the Cinnamon Ants! Whatever the case, comparatively this wasn't that bad. But it could be that we still see a few more fish go belly up overnight...

In the meantime, Tim and I slid into the relatively slick water early on where there were scads of fish working all over the Flat! Since there were no real signs of either Cahills or Sulphurs and plenty of rising fish I went right to a Griffith's Gnat again and that worked well and often, until one took the fly with it on a run! Man! They can be fast and strong. Particularly in the 63° water we were standing in!

Just to see if the fish were still really keyedin on the ants I tied on one of my Cinnamon Ants and had some action with that as well, but it did seem that the Griffith's got more attention. It ended up being the most productive fly of the day overall.

We hung around the Flat for a while and then went down to the Sycamore Run to see what was going on. There were several fish feeding nicely and we got a few looks quickly with the Griffith's but then tried a Killer Cahill just to see how they'd react to that. I think it might have been the second or third drift through that a fish came up from behind the fly and hammered it!

It worked on that fish, but none of the rest of them would have anything to do with us or anything we threw after that! Twerps!

We saw a couple of fish down in the Spectator Hole and tried them for a little bit, but by then the sun was pretty well straight up and the water there was already 69°! We headed back up into the Park and finished the day around the Trough where we had a few more fish on before Tim had to head home. Well, actually he was going back to Lake Catherine / Carpenter Dam to do a little striper fishing I believe! It's nicve to be the boss, eh, Tim?

It was another decent morning of fishing and we noted that we had lost count of fish landed. Nobody got hurt - good day!

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Tuesday - June 10

OH! MY GAWD!!!

I'll get back that later...

Hooked up with Debbie and Walker Loyd (Hot Springs, AR) this morning for some interesting fishing! We had all those storms yesterday afternoon and evening and we started the morning with thick overcast and even some significant mist. But not much breeze to speak of and a very slick river. But the fish were in a pretty decent mood with the shade and cool water through most of the morning.

Walker ponders what to do next with his first fish on! >>>>>

We got Debbie and Walker thinking a little differently about how to throw a fly line, all the while watching rising fish out in front of us - all over The Flat! Pretty busy fish actually. We got the casting pretty clean for both and attatched a couple of Killer Cahills.

It didn't take but a few minutes to get some action with several looks, swirls, boils and a couple of actual takes. It was Walker, however, who stuck the first fish and went round and round with that one!

Fish were in their normal cruising mode and Debbie was getting plenty of looks as well, but had several close encounters and a couple of real takes - just didn't quite stick either of them.

But for both of them, this was a serious learning experience with all of fly fishing. I think we at least touched on just about every aspect that could come up in a day's fishing! And we squeezed it into just a few fast hours! It was mid-day before we knew it.

Debbie goes at it with the fish of the day! >>>>>

While explaining the history of the spot, I moved Debbie, on her part daringly, into the middle of Copperhead Crossing. There were quite a few fish feeding hard there by then!

In a couple of minutes Debbie had nailed the fish of the day which truly had her going round and round! She had to do a complete 180 to keep up with this fish! But she did well handling the fish and got it to hand in a couple of minutes - all on 6X tippets by the way! Beautiful fish, probably 13+", in awesome condition! In the meantime Walker had doubled up with another nice fish on!

I watched him as his fish made a huge surge into the air and broke off his Griffith's Gnat as I fear Walker tried to hang on to the flying fish a tad too tightly! I made note of the splash rings where the fish left the water and the rings where it landed! The centers of the two rings were about 10 feet apart! That was a serious, serious leap! Looking back, I don't know that anyone could have held on to that one!

<<<<<   And wins!!!!

All in all a reasonably successful morning!

But then....

While Walker, Debbie and I were up in the parking lot talking gear and the like, Mike Ingram yelled up from the other end of the picnic area something about ants... We hadn't seen any where we had been fishing, but Mike said they were getting all over them down in the Wall Hole. I thought maybe a termite hatch to be that localized and he said they had red bodies. Sadly, Walker and Debbie were headed home...

A lightbulb lit up! It's the second week of June - time for the "annual" Cinnamon Ant hatch! They've been quite consistent at this time of year and it may only happen for a couple of days (I hope), but today was different!

Here's the "Oh, my gawd!" part... I have to tell ya'll - I have NEVER, EVER, EVER SEEN THE KIND OF ACTION ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, THAT WE SAW FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS!!! Truly, it looked like the AGFC stocking truck had just dumped 10,000 fish in the river right in front of us. From the Meat Hole at the Cabins all the way up The Flat was non-stop boils and gulps! One every other second and every two or three feet apart! Sometimes more frequently, sometimes even closer together! I've never seen anything like this anywhere!

I took this shot of Mike in the middle of them. But it doesn't even come close to depicting what was really going on. But just think - this shot was just a millisecond of time and look how many boils you can actually see at that moment!

I count seven visible boils, just in sight of the camera, in that millisecond! Let me do a little math... Even if you count JUST seven rises per second - that's 420 rises a minute - that's 25,200 rises an hour! Get the idea! I truly had no idea that there were that many fish in the Park!

Mike and I weren't getting doubles, we were getting "two and a halfs"! We were getting fish hooked within 6 to 8 seconds of releasing the previous fish. You want to talk about obscene??? But by 3:30 they were starting to slow down.

Of course, the worry now, is whether or not we're going to get an Ant Kill! When ants are this heavy and the fish eat too many of them, it can kill trout! We have had kills in years past. The formic acid that the ant stings us with can be lethal to the trout if they get too much of them into the stomachs. Five or six years ago we lost several dozen fish in the late summer due to a Wood Ant hatch - tiny black ones that got into the river off of a summer afternoon storm. Last year and in 2006 we had subsequent loss of a only couple of dozen fish each time because of the Cinnamon Ants.

My fear this time is that there were so many ants and the heaviest feasting I've ever seen! I kind of hate to go out in the morning to see what we're dealing with, but there's not a thing we can do about it... And I suspect we'll see it again tomorrow afternoon, but probably not as heavy. But that's like predicting weather. We'll see.

 Back Cast

Saturday - June 7

Had a short session Saturday morning with Paul and Sheri Richards (Longview, TX) as they tacked a little fly fishing onto their weekend here in the 'Boro!

I almost think they were having about as much fun developing the casts as they did with the fishing. And I mean that in a good way! They were both first timers to touch a fly rod which does have its benefits when first learning to throw a fly line! No bad habits to contened with, hopefully blank slates!

As they got a little better with delivering an overhead in addition to doing rather well with the rolls, we watched fish rise frequently right in front of us. There weren't near the people out this Saturday as there was last week and the fish certainly felt better about things. We also still had the great breeze and mixed cloud cover and the fish were cruising their favorite places.

<<<<<   Paul Richards with his first trout on a fly!

Didn't waste anytime today and went right to the Killer Cahill and it took just a few minutes for Paul to get the first strike and then another, Sheri was right behind him with a couple of strikes within just a few minutes! But just like Chris on Thursday, no hook-ups right off.

Both Paul and Sheri got a lot of takes and swirls in the short time they were actually fishing and Paul did land his first fish on a fly before too long! He was quite surprised how strong these fish are! Sheri wasn't quite so lucky as to stick one fully, but she had plenty of looks at fish taking shots at her fly and get a bit of a bent rod on at least one fish! So close, so close!

After they left I fished for about an hour until the sun was pretty well straight up and the fish got too spooky. By mid-day the water in the Flat was 67° - not too bad, but I figured why push it! There was a family reunion at the pavilion and there were plenty of kids in the water there and rocks being skipped around, etc... Fish were getting pretty wary. I can only imagine what six or eight splasing kids must sound like to the fish!

Initially my leader was tapered only to 5X as the last time I had fished my rod was during Prime Time with a Smidge. I got several serious studies and outright refusals in a row! I tacked on about 20 inches of 6X flourocarbon and went to getting solid takes and fish on immediately! Kind of answers the question about using 6X flouro for the rest of the summer - except at Prime Time when you need to be a little stout becasue of the hard hits in the dark water! Just a little hint...

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Thursday - June 5

Had an enjoyable first half of the day with Chris Knox (Russleville, AR)! It was seriously windy all day - and into the night! But in the summer I have no problem with a little wind! If you throw a line correctly, or even close to correctly, you shouldn't be having that much trouble with the wind!

We took care of a lot of that for Chris right off and started floating a myriad of flies around the upper half of the Flat. First a Smidge and then an A & W, both of which which got several near misses and a couple of solid hits, but no hook-ups! The fish were fairly active and became more interested as the morning progressed. The chop was also increasing which helped. But still no full hook-ups! I've seen this happen on a few occasions. Some folks just have to go through a bunch of fish to start the day off - it comes around at some point!

Chris plays his first fish of the day in the "deep swells" of the Flat! >>>>>

I think we tried a Paraduck next. I went right to some of the "big guns" today! Probably close to 20 fish actually took the fly under, but not a single one of them found the hook point! It was getting uncanny after a while! They were happy to take a bite out of the dry - just couldn't stick one!

Moved on to the next step as we were seeing several March Browns, Light Cahills and Sulphurs showing in the late morning! What a mixed bag of bugs. Should have been able to come up with something that was going to stick in a jaw!

Got serious then. Out came the Killer Cahill - which landed the first fish of the day, and then the second and third in rapid succession. The One Out Of Four Out Of Four ratio was balancing out! The fourth fish broke off! And I went looking for another Killer, but didn't spot one quick enough in my boxes. What I did find plenty of, however, were Woodie-mergers! Let's go with that!

<<<<<   Finally! A fish in hand!

We fished the Woodie with decent results until the high water ran us out of the river at 2 PM! When all was said and done, Chris had probably landed 6-8 fish, only one of which was probably less than 12 inches! The last fish was really nice, maybe the fish of the day, that Chris hooked up as the high water was pushing through the Skinny Water and MDR'd as we were stepping out onto high ground! It turned into a reasonably successful morning!

The evening - was also kind of interesting as I met up with Fred Duffer (Dallas, TX) for falling water and Prime Time! Generation shut down was right on schedule and we got into the water about 6:30! We headed all the way up to the Chute area and found a bunch of fish working steadily there!

Fred Duffer hooks up in The Chute! >>>>>

Fred dropped a Smidge into the still flowing water and got results almost immediately. The wind was still just about as strong as it had been all day and coming right up the stream bed - it was giving Fred a little trouble so we took care of that for a bit and then got back to serious fishing!

Several fish were hooked up and we fished the Smidge both wet and dry with equal success! Fred managed the fish of the day at 14 1/4 inches! A realy healthy colored-up bow which I seriously under-estimated at 13 1/2"! I usually don't miss by that much. He also got one that looked like it had eaten a Big Bad Buddy's burger! Big belly on that one!

The wind, however, conitnued to be a factor - not on the casting but on the evening Hover! As Prime Time arrived (8:36 by the way) the wind was still blowing substantially and if mayflies were about they were very hard to spot and were probably being blown back into the trees! So, the fish didn't have much to pick from except the emergers that were coming out at the time. Any bugs that made it off the water or tried to get back to the water were being blown away!

Fred manages to conjour up a smile for his 14 incher! >>>>>

Still, Fred did get several fish on, and landed, in the last thirty minutes and it was great fun to try to cast to the gulping sounds in the near dark! By 9:30 it was time to get out! All in all a good day of fishing!

As of early Friday morning the SWEPCO Generation link is still showing NO GENERATION for all of next week! I'll believe it when I see it, but it may very well be that, after all of the rain of spring, we really haven't had that much since and I wonder if they don't want to draw the lake down very much this early in the summer! Pure speculation on my part right now... But they rarley stray off of that scheule so I would anticpiate no generation next week!

Which is OK from one standpoint - we should have some really decent Prime Time activity and fish spreading throughout the shallows nicely to feed!

On the other hand, water temperatures in the mid-to late afternoon could get into the stress levels if you are playing a fish. At 72° trout will continue to actively feed and cruise in our well oxygenated water - BUT - about 2:30 or so I'd get off the water and wouldn't come back out until the sun is off of it in the evening. Probably no earlier than 5 PM. Let the water cool back down a few degrees before you go back out. Hooking a trout in 70 degree water could easily be lethal. It might be fun to watch them cruise about, but I suggest you leave them alone!

 Back Cast

Monday - June 2

Summer - summer - summer!!!

Despite the fact that we're still three weeks away from the longest day of the year - it's indeed summer! 90 degrees and sunny! That pretty well defines it for me...

Had some challenging fishing over the weekend. On Saturday Cameron Waldo set up a trip with a bunch of his buddies - Will Mixon, Matt Waddell, Jake Blindman and Matthew Pagan - all from Jonesboro, AR! There were another eight fishermen out at Riverside in addition to the six of us! And we needed to get all of these guys some basic casting initially as well.

Suffice it to say that the fish were just a tad spooky!

But we did manage to get a few hits on Smidge's and A & W's, just couldn't quite get any of the guys to get seriously hooked up! It was also kind of a short session for the guys as well... The odds were kind of stacked against them.

Another reminder to everyone - Saturday morning is just NOT the best time to come here, especially during the summer! If that's your only option, that's your only option and we'll do the best we can! At least we weren't completely skunked with no strikes at all! A couple of opportunities were there!

The same thing kind of held true yesterday for Kyle and Sheri Blankenship (Shreveport, LA) as they made their first real attempt at fly fishing for trout, at least. At least there weren't near the bodies out on the river, just one in the Wall Hole which, of course, hinders the movements of the fish... But we still had quite a few fish working up in The Flat.

After some casting we loaded up again and both had a few takes and hard bumps, but Kyle managed the only solid hook-up! Decent fish which, naturally, released itself just about the time I got the camera focused! But Sheri got a real good look at the bright red sides of the 12 incher as it came within about ten feet of her!

Unfortunately this session was cut a bit short too due to the heavy thunder that had moved directly over us - I kind of pushed the envelope a little I dare say! Big storms to the north came sliding down just to us! Enough to run us out of the water. And as some light showers settled in for a bit. We figured we'd better not risk it further. I hate to tell Kyle and Sheri this, but that was as bad as it got and the storm cell moved off to the east. We probably could have waited it out a little longer, I'm afraid...

But both Sheri and Kyle felt fish, at least, and avoided an official skunk as well! Again, the opportunities knocked - the door was just stuck partially open! I believe they're going to be back before too long. Sheri wasn't sure if she was going to like this fly fishing thing, in fact she was told she wouldn't like it at all!

Quite the contrary! She really enjoyed the casting and the focus that fly casting and fishing requires! And the interesting thing is that she recognized that aspect on day one. Some people never get that! A lot of people think it's just about the fish, after all...

By the way - generation scheduled to shut down at 6 PM this week!

 Back Cast

Friday - May 30

Well... The floods are all over, Sandy's at home trying to recouperate, the Diamond Festival and Memorial Day are history, and summer generation patterns are settling in! Things may be getting back to normal here in the 'Boro!

<<<<<   Thursday morning - "a beautiful day in the neighborhood!"

Yesteday morning I went out to do a little scouting and liked what I found... Fish in some of my favorite places and some nice ones too! Got one that was a full bodied 16 incher and another "red-tagged" fish - #57149 - that was 13 1/2"! I haven't seen a tagged fish in quite a while, so that was kind of a good sign!

The 16 incher was kind of nice to have on the other end of my line too!

Yesterday evening Mark Emery (Flint, TX) arrived and we hit the river at about 7:30, but they must have generated past 7 PM as the water wasn't down to safe levels just yet. But it wasn't long before we could get in and we stepped in at The Trough with a "Prime Time" Smidge ready to go!

It took a little while to get fish to focus in on the fly but by 8:30 the evening Hover was in full swing and Mark was getting strikes and fish on with regularity. It was a classic summer Prime Time - fog settling in over the water, fish rising everywhere with huge gulps, The Whipporwhills cranking it up from one side of the river to the other, swifts, swallows and bats zipping past your head!

This morning we started at the Sycamore Run. It was actually pretty quiet there compared to what I saw yesterday in my scoutings. And we didn't take too long to get into the Spectator Hole where we did turn up three or four decent fish! There is a great caddis hatch going right now and we started throwing a caddis dry with a bit of success but the Smidge turned out to be the fly of the day for the most part! The Smidge is a caddis emerger after all...

At the top of the Pipeline Flat we got into several more nice fish where, yesterday, I only found one! And in the Pipeline itself where, yesterday, I really got into fish, we raised not fish one! Go figure!

Mark Emery fends off some big fight from a nice fish! >>>>>

We had better luck in the Pasture Pool, though... Quite a bit of activity there and several fish on! All nice, colorful, healthy, strong fish! Fun to watch them raise up from the deeper murky water and tag the fly! We had good conditions too, lots of bright sun and dry southwesteterly breezes, and sometimes just down-right windy!

At the Confluence we dropped a Long Creek deep into the pool and turned up a couple of really nice fish - up to 14 inches! Mark was having a little too much fun with that 9' 2 wgt! Had to get the fly fly down to where the fish could see it in that murky water. The lake must have really gotten churned up and clouded this year with all the floods. The river is reflecting that with quite a bit of color to it so far this early summer. Usually, by now the river is starting to clear up nicely and the silt is washed out for the most part. Just not happening yet!

We decided to fish the Park before they opened the gates at 2 PM so we moved back up to the Trough and went back to working a Smidge in the shallows. We had several looks, follows and near-misses and a couple of hook-ups. Just kind of getting ready for this evening's Prime Time now...

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Always On The Water - Jeff