mhamlettster
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Yeah, this is a loaded question.
I would say it depends what you’re targeting(I know most everyone here is trout only, or maybe bass too) but I tend to start at the dam and target everything that swims as we paddle down; Striper, bows, butter, texas gold, the occasional koi, Guads, smallies and florida LMB.
For streamer flinging, my all time favorite is a 6wt, Bad Ass Glass, or the 8wt variant, both in the quickshot.
For Czech, I onlt have one true nymphing rod and its a budget rod; Moonshine Epiphany. Its wieght gives me confidence that I don’t have with the higher-end sticks, mostly because the guad is rough on rods, even more-so when you’re paddling. I have gotten good at anchoring in eddies and hitting deeper rifs standing on my Amigo, but have gotten excited pulling in a trutchador and fallen in netting or playing the fish.
I plan do a quite a bit more wading this year with the lease access pass and access to other properties, so it may change but I’m likely to have the tall stick in hand until I see something busting baitfish.
For nymphing, hitting all levels in the columns until you find the sweet spot. Bead head dragged, emerges, sinking a dry… dont be scared to try new stuff. This is a good fishery to hone skills on. Chances are if you miss a trout, you’ll get a guad or smallie or even a red horse.
For streamers, a brown cone headed woolly bugger with flash works year-round. They’ll eat game changers, craw patterns… all kinds of stuff.
A few hot shots at 5k to get some fresh blood in the water would be nice but I know it’ll flush most of the holdovers away.
The latest I had seen as of lunch today was that they expected to push 700 and reassess tomorrow to see what the lake is at with the inflow. I know more rain was forecast and creeks and tributaries are still flowing into the river, so who knows what is in store for the lake. SOme fish may hold in eddies and cuts with a super hard flow like 5k, but I bet 700 won’t do as much as we think. Hopefully the holdovers have been eating and will push to eddies and cuts to reserve their energy and stay put. In the mean time, some striper hunting is on the menu!
We made a pretty good haul on the get trashed clean up and I saw that there were two or three others going on at the same time. Hopefully everyone keeps the momentum going and packs out everything they can grab.
Something that I think is a good idea for people new to the river is to get with some of the local people to try to do a run from the dam down before the LAP sites are active so that you can get a good feel for the water, and what is above and below the access sites. I’m sure if you offer to feed or beer some of them they would be glad to help you get oriented.
FLows are great right now to scoot down river at a decent clip and you could make it in a day without a problem, especially if you don’t fish. And I hear that there is not a can to be seen anywhere on the water..
