June 12, 2008

It had been nearly two weeks since I've been fishing, and almost three since I'd been able to chase some after roughfish. Rain has been widespread across the state over the past few weeks, including bouts of severe weather. The Otter Tail river has been flowing high since spring melt. Flows have been above Q80 for quite some time now. Typically peak flows occur in early June then begin to subside until the following spring. I'm ready for them to go back to normal already.

I thought the redhorse were done spawning by now, however, I found a male golden redhorse with nicely developed tubercles on it's head.

A few silvers were still hanging around, but the size and numbers have dropped off considerably since they were done spawning about month ago.

The upside to warmer water temperatures is that the mooneyes, goldeyes, and freshwater drum have moved in. The mooneye has been eluding my camera for sometime now. I'd also like to catch more drum, especially on the fly. I managed to catch all three species.

The carp are spawning.

Fishing for carp was somewhat of a challenge. With fish actively spawning, it was difficult to get a fish to take it's mind of off of doing the deed long enough to take a bait. After putting in quite sometime, I managed to catch three average sized specimens before moving on.



Things will be slow on the carp front until spawning is over. There goes my ace in the hole, when the river action runs slow. Now that the fish are finally active, though, the opportunity for sight fishing carp will arise. Tailers and cloopers welcome.

2 comments:

  1. I caught some spawning Utah Suckers in eastern Idaho last week on a chartruese copper john. Quite a kick on a 4wt rod.

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  2. Cool. Were you intentionally fishing for them? Suckers are an oft ignored species and an underrated target with a fly rod. I would love the opportunity to catch a Utah sucker on a fly.

    Many blueliners think they have the trout of a lifetime on their line, only to be disappointed when they find that it was a sucker that was putting up such a fight. Why many snub this fish I will not understand. If catch and release is a mantra practiced by many, then why does it matter what the targeted, or unintentionally caught species is?

    A tight line is a tight line.

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