I took clients down to an area I think I'll be calling the "nursery" today. If you've been out there you know what I'm talking about. We caught about 20 fish but only a half a dozen were over 16 inches. Almost all were on dries though and a couple really good ones on hoppers. Yes, even with the cloudy, cool weather, we were getting them on hoppers.
It's kind of crazy what the canyon turns into this time of year. All the yearling trout come into the river from the tribs so there are tons of 8 to 12 inch fish; both browns and rainbows. At one point we had to stop throwing caddis flies because all we were getting on them were dinks. With good cloud cover we even tried streamers. The couple I had were getting their bugs in the right places but we only managed two fish. The other day, with rain and cold, we absolutely wrecked 'em on streamers. Three days ago we got a number of good fish on hoppers including the brown above, all kiped up and everything. Today? Not so much. So where do they all go?
Well, they're still in the river. Even though some of the browns have migrated up the tribs to spawn, the majority stay in the Missouri. They will move to different areas but the peak of the spawn won't happen for another month so what's the deal? My guess is that weather is the culprit here. Yesterday, and on days we've done well catching big fish, there was low pressure or at least stability, and a south or southwest wind. Today the wind was straight out of the north and skies were clearing. A little instability and maybe some higher pressure turns the big boys off. The dinks aren't effected as much so they still eat. This time of year we have a lot more weather systems coming through too so I think the bigger fish get finicky with the changes. There is still plenty of food and even three days ago we were catching really good browns on caddis in bright conditions. If you have a better explanation, let me know.
Keep 'em where they live...
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