Sunday, February 20, 2011

Dream Stream and Frying Pan weekend

Dream Stream (43 cfs)

The Dream Stream is starting to have some lake-fish trickle in...

This 5 lb buck took a size 22 red mojo midge

With the influx of both lake-fish and the "Hofer" rainbow stock a good amount of trout occupy the deeper pools and slots below the bridge. To tell the difference between the lake pre-spawn fish and the "Hofer" stockers look for a color differenc: the lake-fish are more brightly colored, and the Hofers are bright silver.  Neither of the sets of fish are very picky right now, but the lake-fish definitely get spooked quickly.

                            
The bright colors make these fish easier to spot


Frying Pan River (102 cfs)

The frying Pan river was very crowded, but thank god everyone likes to bobber fish the toilet bowl, leaving the faster deeper slots less-pressured. The flows were bumped recently and I expected a high level of mysis shrimp to be adrift, and that mysis fishing would be the key...it was not the key.

Instead the only producing fly of the day was a size 26 Top Secret midge

Brightly colored 5lb rainbow was sitting in a deep slot on the edge of the current

The trick to hooking these fish was all presentation, a bad cast was punished with the larger fish disappearing across the deeper fast current

Top secret midge secure in the lower jaw of this 'bow

The rewards of sight fishing

I'm not positive, but I think the fish above has eluded me on two previous trips to the pan. He sits on the edge of the fast water in the deep riffle right below the toilet bowl before it opens into the flats. I was lucky enough to hook him the previous trip but he broke my entire rig off in his first head-shake. I had spooked him a couple times this morning, and while wading around in the fast current waste deep (trying to get a feel for feeding lanes), I spooked him again, and saw him move 3 feet down and 4 feet to my left. I could pick out only a little brighter hue to the water he was in. So I stayed motionless in the current for five minutes and then prepared to cast less than a rod length away. The only real option was to high-stick over him and hope he takes it well enough, because an indicator wasn't an option for this spooky fish. After about 4 casts, he took the size 26 fly and broke into a fit of head-shakes. After a hard fought battle, where near the end he tried to take me up into the toilet bowl, he was to the net!

7lb (very fat) 'bow on #26 Top Secret

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. A lot of green on that fly to be a top secret. Is it a variation? Very nice blog btw :)

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  3. Lynn, Thanks for the support! its a regular old top secret that picked up some green algae in the battle.

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  4. Gotcha.....Pan does have a ton of moss this time of year. Another question for you. How do you like that Simms headwater waist pack? Thinking about picking one up

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  5. Lynn,

    Well, I will give you a brief answer, and then post a full review when I get some more time:

    I think it is an awesome pack, lots of room, good belt, great magnetic closure. now on the downside: I like to where my pack forward when fishing to get at stuff, and if it is full, it droops forward a lot, and if I'm not careful stuff will fall out. As well, it has so many pockets inside that the pockets take up important flybox space. The side pockets cannot hold waterbottles very well.
    Improvements: add foam to the front pocket like the fishpond waterdance guidepack, or the new patagonia waist pack. make a deeper/mesh waterbottle holder.
    Overall, I think its definitely a solid pack and aesthetically pleasing

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  6. Charlie,

    I did end up picking up the headwater waist pack. I think I am going to like it alot. I like the shoulder strap to keep it from walking down for those of us with a barrel waist...haha I'll be trying it out tomorrow and Monday on the Pan :)

    Lynn

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  7. Lynn,

    Hope the waist pack works as well for you as it has for me. I'd love to hear your report on the Pan since the flows have been bumped and rumors of very large fish have been flying around

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  8. We "fished" the Pan on Sunday 4/10 and it was brutal. Steady 20-30 mph wind....snowing sideways. Rough for sure since I like to sight fish to specific fish. I hooked 4 fish, none larger than 18" and landed none which was ok by me since I did not have to get my hands wet :) We left and hit the Blue on Monday, much nicer and we caught several fish in the big gulp hole and up to I-70. Was a good trip, but looks like I need to hit the Taylor soon. I loved the waist-pack first time out. Need to tweak a couple things, but great overall.

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  9. Good to hear that the blue was decent, it can be hit or miss for sure. The wind is kryptonite for us sight fisherman, definitely one of the windier springs that I have experienced.

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