I fished two of the last three days with Doug and his wife, Bobby. Doug's been out with his dad and friends for years but this was Bobby's first time fishing the Mo. She might be hooked...just sayin.
Yesterday we actually got off the Mo and fished the Dearborn. You don't fish the Dearborn for the fishing. You float it for the amazing scenery and if you're lucky, you hit it right and you can get some of these. (Doug with a nice grip and grin, Dearborn rainbow.) Like I've mentioned here before, it's a beautiful float but it is an all-dayer so make sure you really want to be on the river that long with the people you're floating with. Once you're in, you are IN. Yesterday was a great day catching some good fish and introducing a couple great folks to one of the most gorgeous places in the Lower Forty-Eight.
So the Missouri came down like the rumors suggested. In fact, it came down almost 6,000 cfs, which is literally half of what it was. On Monday, they dropped it about 2,000 cfs. The fishing started out hot, then turned off but by about 4pm, fish started coming up all over and they were happy! We were running out of time but we did get a few to eat "real" bugs--definitely a good sign.
Tuesday I fished with a couple veteran anglers in Herb and Donny V. It started out slow and knowing how they were going to be dropping the water again, I couldn't imagine it would get any better. The theory is, is that when the water levels change, the fish have to move around and find new feeding lanes. That's probably true but the reality on Tuesday is when the water came down, just about every fish in the river started eating on top again and we got a number of really good fish to eat small parachute Adams and caddis.
Here's my theory and I just checked the USGS website and looked at the water temps to support this. The Holter Dam does draw some water from the bottom to feed the hydro-electric plant. It's about 2,500cfs if what I heard is correct. Anything more than 2,500cfs and it's coming from the top, which is much warmer surface water. The water temps below the dam fluctuate anywhere from a couple degrees to even 5 or 6 degrees throughout the day. The more water that is coming over the top of the dam, the warmer the mix is and then you add a few degrees of fluctuation throughout the day and that can have a pretty significant effect. As you know, bug hatches are in large part reliant on water temps. A few degrees can change everything.
Here's a little entomology lesson for the novices. Mayflies mature underwater as nymphs and when the conditions are right, they make their way to the surface and pop up as duns. Depending on the conditions, those duns can stay on the water for a long time drying their wings, which make them incredibly vulnerable and brings fish up. When there's sun, the duns take off pretty quick and are a harder target for trout so they are less likely to eat them. They take off and hang out in the bushes until they mate and molt into spinners. Those spinners come back to the water and lay eggs and then die. When they're dead, they lay flat on the water and again, are easy targets for fish and when there's enough of them, fish will come up even in the sun.
When the water levels dropped, there was a significant drop in the warm water spilling over the top, which cooled the overall temperature of water being released. That cooler water set off a good number of BWO's. Those BWO's don't sit on the water too long when there's sun. However, the spinners dropped sometime in the mid-afternoon and fish started keying in on them. Because they were already looking up, they were also pretty eager to eat caddis if you put it in front of them. Fish didn't really have to find feeding lanes because there were so many bugs on the surface and in the right water, fish were coming up pretty much river wide.
Here's another little misnomer when people talk about the fishing on the Missouri. Low water in the summer doesn't necessarily mean warmer water. Again, with lower water levels, a higher percentage of water comes from the bottom of the lake, which is cooler. It also means that the water will cool down more at night, which helps the river downstream.
Anyway, there was a fear that we were going to have too much water, which definitely hinders the dry-fly fishing. We didn't get the spring precipitation so although we topped out at a little over 11,000cfs, we're now at 5,200 below Holter. Fish are happy and bugs are hatching. Weather will still help to bring fish up but the fishing is good so don't cancel your trips thinking you'll have high water. And if you've been thinking about fishing but were reluctant to make plans, you should probably get out while the getting's good.
Keep 'em where they live...
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