Streamer Bite 2016

 

I used to LOVE streamer fishing. In fact, the first trout I ever caught was on a streamer. And to be fair, I still love the take when a big brown comes slashing out of the depths--usually just off the ledge to slam your bug as you strip it erratically off the bank. It is pretty special but waking up this morning with a sore shoulder, sore forearms and with only this ugly ass mug of John Chase to show for it...I'm beginning to have second thoughts.

 

Yesterday John, who is a good friend from Seattle, and I took a trip down to the lower stretch of the Missouri River. The plan was to rip streamers. You know; chuck and duck, throw the wood to them or however you want to refer to it until the bugs came out and then we would hunt heads. We threw streamers for about 4 hours and landed literally 4 fish. Granted, they were good fish but they were few and far between. It's a bummer too because the streamer fishing used to be really good. I wish I had an answer for it but I don't. Yesterday would have seemed to be the perfect day for it too. Maybe it's the pressure from other fishermen or maybe we just don't have as many of those big meat-eaters like we used to. I know that kind of frustrates people when I say that but it is true.

 

As for the bugs; we did get a pretty big hatch of BWO's at around 3:30 and saw a few fish on them but just a few. I'm not sure what the deal was but I wish I could have reported something better. The short-leashing wasn't all that great either.

 

I know. I sound like Debbie Downer but I'm not going to blow smoke up your hoo-ha and say it was something that it wasn't just to get people excited to come out and buy trips. I don't think that would be fair to anyone.  The lower stretch is still my favorite because there are big fish down there and they will eat eventually. Plus, we only saw one other boat past Pelican Point, although the weather was kind of crappy and I'm sure some folks were scared off of it. Maybe the fishing getting tough will scare folks off that stretch and maybe, just maybe the big boyz will come out of hiding. And again, to be fair, I haven't spent a lot of time down there so maybe it was just an off day.

 

Keep 'em where they live...