Not having been on the river nearly as much as I would like to this year it has changed the amount of research I do before every trip. As with any river the stage, flow and water clarity all play a role in where the fish might be, what the best technique may be and also what stage of the spawn they may be in. After doing my pre trip research I decided it was time to put all our effert into looking for those few big fish that should be on there way up river with a belly full of spawn. What we found was exactly that!!!!!
The river is changing daily if not hourly this time of year and the fish will follow. By looking at the stage and also the flow I was able to tell that there should be a few current seams popping up and also being our first push of water coming down stream should get the fish up and moving. It did exactly that and pushed some fish into predicable spots where we were able to target a much smaller area than previous outings.
Covering from the head of the lake to the dam I cant say one spot was better than the other as there is fish throughout the system as they are all in different stages of the spawn. With that said, we didnt spend a ton of time in any one spot unless we caught a few fish. We would get a couple fish out of each spot and move on to the next just picking off the active fish. Stay mobile until you find a pod of fish and stick with them until they quit biting than move on.
Most of our time was spent pitching blades, but plastics did put some fish in the boat. With the water clarity dirty we threw mostly bright colors, with the likes of firetiger and gold for blades and chart orange core and chart pepper for plastics. Both moxies and pulse-r’s worked well.
Locations didnt seem to have a specific trend other than out of the current. We caught fish on sand and rocks from 2 feet all the way down to 20 feet.
It is that time of the year to put your time in if your looking for the fish of your lifetime. It may not come easy or quick but you sure cant catch them sitting on the couch.
Until next time…………