Steve@BBT
06-18-2004, 11:45 AM
Just a quick little river update before the weekend...
Once again we had some rains the other night that put color in the water and brought it up, especially further downriver. I checked the water @ Green Cottage around 10:00 am this morning and found it to be up only about four or five inches at best, but with a pretty good stain limiting visibility to around two feet. Water temp was 62 degrees, but that will rise a fair amount during the day.
Jay at the shop mentioned that when he went over Upper Branch it was almost chocolate in color and I'm sure it's up a fair amount more down there as well. The good news is that it is dropping and clearing at this point instead of the other way around. With any luck and the weather "predicted" it'll do that quickly.
Herb and I took a little voyage downriver on the night of the sixteenth and shortly after 10:00 pm found ourselves in a fantastic spinner fall of Hexes! By 11:00 pm the current side of the river was littered with spinners floating down river, but we only heard a few fish rising and they sounded on the smaller size.
The water down there was quite stained even then so I'm not sure if that was a major contributor to the lack of risers or if the fish down there are simply full from all the recent high water and the food it has brought. (Hope that's not the case!) We spoke with a few other anglers that had basically the same experience, but one or two did have some good fish going.
http://bbt.steelcity.net/6-16-04-3.jpg
I guess at this point with the water conditions the way they are I certainly wouldn't encourage anyone to make a special trip up for the big bugs. I just thought I would at least toss out the info that they are, or at least were on that night, going pretty good. With any luck the water will clear up quickly and by the first part of next week it'll get rocking. I couldn't go last night and I'm not sure that I'll bother tonight either, but rest assured I'll be down there on a regular basis with or without clients starting in the next few days when it looks better to me.
That's really all I have for now. Have a good weekend all & tight lines!
Steve
P.S. There's been some talk on one site that we put up the photo of Tom's brown on my last report just to drum up business. To that I say "@#*% you!", (That's my mature side speaking of course. ;^) we report it as we get it and nothing more. (You should also note that in most post recently we've reported tough or bad river conditions, quite the opposite of trying to bring people up as much as we would like to.) I would do the same with anyone's photo and story of a very large fish. I simply take the word of the angler and put it out there if it's interesting enough. As stated before, I will not personally speculate. I did ask Tom about a few of the points made and he laughed stating that it didn't matter. He had two clients with him that took the photos.
The glasses, he said, are photo sensitive prescription Action Optics that go clear at night. He said he wished he'd taken them off, but in the excitement didn't and with all the lights shining on him they darkened. He also said that the air temps were in the mid thirties (Cold) and it was raining.
You'll note that in everything reported it is clear that this is the anglers story, not one of our own. Bring me your photo and story that's noteworthy and I'll print it to! (Unless, of course, we start getting all sorts of obvious pranks stemming from this.) I do know one thing, with the Salmon not being in yet this sure is fun! It seems that many of us have to have something going that will stir the pot...
Once again we had some rains the other night that put color in the water and brought it up, especially further downriver. I checked the water @ Green Cottage around 10:00 am this morning and found it to be up only about four or five inches at best, but with a pretty good stain limiting visibility to around two feet. Water temp was 62 degrees, but that will rise a fair amount during the day.
Jay at the shop mentioned that when he went over Upper Branch it was almost chocolate in color and I'm sure it's up a fair amount more down there as well. The good news is that it is dropping and clearing at this point instead of the other way around. With any luck and the weather "predicted" it'll do that quickly.
Herb and I took a little voyage downriver on the night of the sixteenth and shortly after 10:00 pm found ourselves in a fantastic spinner fall of Hexes! By 11:00 pm the current side of the river was littered with spinners floating down river, but we only heard a few fish rising and they sounded on the smaller size.
The water down there was quite stained even then so I'm not sure if that was a major contributor to the lack of risers or if the fish down there are simply full from all the recent high water and the food it has brought. (Hope that's not the case!) We spoke with a few other anglers that had basically the same experience, but one or two did have some good fish going.
http://bbt.steelcity.net/6-16-04-3.jpg
I guess at this point with the water conditions the way they are I certainly wouldn't encourage anyone to make a special trip up for the big bugs. I just thought I would at least toss out the info that they are, or at least were on that night, going pretty good. With any luck the water will clear up quickly and by the first part of next week it'll get rocking. I couldn't go last night and I'm not sure that I'll bother tonight either, but rest assured I'll be down there on a regular basis with or without clients starting in the next few days when it looks better to me.
That's really all I have for now. Have a good weekend all & tight lines!
Steve
P.S. There's been some talk on one site that we put up the photo of Tom's brown on my last report just to drum up business. To that I say "@#*% you!", (That's my mature side speaking of course. ;^) we report it as we get it and nothing more. (You should also note that in most post recently we've reported tough or bad river conditions, quite the opposite of trying to bring people up as much as we would like to.) I would do the same with anyone's photo and story of a very large fish. I simply take the word of the angler and put it out there if it's interesting enough. As stated before, I will not personally speculate. I did ask Tom about a few of the points made and he laughed stating that it didn't matter. He had two clients with him that took the photos.
The glasses, he said, are photo sensitive prescription Action Optics that go clear at night. He said he wished he'd taken them off, but in the excitement didn't and with all the lights shining on him they darkened. He also said that the air temps were in the mid thirties (Cold) and it was raining.
You'll note that in everything reported it is clear that this is the anglers story, not one of our own. Bring me your photo and story that's noteworthy and I'll print it to! (Unless, of course, we start getting all sorts of obvious pranks stemming from this.) I do know one thing, with the Salmon not being in yet this sure is fun! It seems that many of us have to have something going that will stir the pot...