July 8, 2011

panache

bassin
Giving the bass a Mustache Ride, boy was that fun! So far Peacock Black has been the hot color, picking up countless numbers of smallmouth, largemouth, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, green sunfish, and their associated hybrids. Hell even the small pike and muskie love it, as they nabbed a few of my flies from the confines of their elodea camouflaged hideouts.

sunny D
bassin
Even picked up a scratch whitey the other day, a surprise to me, since most of them have since headed to the deep confines of a coolwater basin now that stream temps on the Otter Tail have risen to about 27°C. One first I observed the other day, a large Plecoptera species. I've seen small winter stones on this reach before in later March/early April, but never a large stonefly in July. This thing was in the size range of a Pteronarcyid (salmonfly) as it was around three to four centimeters long, but lacked the orange coloration around the thorax of a salmonfly. I'm a bit perplexed as to the ID, as the insect flew off before I could photograph it, but yet intrigued as this could be the reason why my larger prince nymph, Fresh Pimp nymph, and Thunderbird patterns have always fished so well here.

whitey
By the way, the rivers are still way blown here. I've resorted to fishing the upper reaches of the Otter Tail, which I typically abandon in late spring once the water temps begin to rise. Fortunately, the high flows have kept some spring spawning fish in a few deep holes through this summer yet. So maybe there is still hope after all...

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