There may be hope for 2011 yet. Despite the rain falling from the sky as I type this, a two week dry spell in the region (somewhat of a rare occurrence as of late) has allowed many of the tributaries of the Otter Tail and Red Rivers to finally begin to fall. While nowhere near as low as normal for this time of year, flows are starting to finally approach wadeable and fishable levels, nearly four months after the start of spring runoff. Insane. With rivers finally back within their banks, hopefully these lower flows will start to congregate fish and bring them off of the floodplains and onto their normal flats and other haunts. Lower flows will weaken the strong currents allowing a fly to drift more freely to fish holding in deep pools anr runs without the added burden of excess tungsten and lead. This should give the advantage back to the fly angler.
Who knows how long this will last. Time to get back on the saddle.
Showing posts with label shitty flows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shitty flows. Show all posts
August 30, 2011
Salvageable?
There may be hope for 2011 yet. Despite the rain falling from the sky as I type this, a two week dry spell in the region (somewhat of a rare occurrence as of late) has allowed many of the tributaries of the Otter Tail and Red Rivers to finally begin to fall. While nowhere near as low as normal for this time of year, flows are starting to finally approach wadeable and fishable levels, nearly four months after the start of spring runoff. Insane. With rivers finally back within their banks, hopefully these lower flows will start to congregate fish and bring them off of the floodplains and onto their normal flats and other haunts. Lower flows will weaken the strong currents allowing a fly to drift more freely to fish holding in deep pools anr runs without the added burden of excess tungsten and lead. This should give the advantage back to the fly angler.
Who knows how long this will last. Time to get back on the saddle.
July 8, 2011
panache
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.
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.
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...
April 19, 2011
November 17, 2010
golden nugget
The prairie sun has slowly been sinking across the sky, slung low in the horizon, almost lost amongst the tall grass and cottonwoods lining the river bank. This time of year, the sun's angle of incidence is so great that much of the solar energy is dissipated by the time it reaches' the earth's surface. In addition, the low angle of the sun off the horizon makes it extremely difficult to read the water and even tougher to spot fish. Reflection, refraction, it doesn't matter; when the sun is low, the water's surface is cursed with a glare that not even high performance optics can overcome. Unless fishing in gin clear water, this is nymph fishing time.
Equipped with my standard arsenal of flies, I grabbed a dozen of my favorites and tossed them into my day's worth box. I grabbed my rod and hit the bank of the river. Amazing that at this time of year, flows on the Otter Tail can be higher than they were this spring after spring runoff. Here comes the broken record again, but this is just plain ridonkulous. With flows topping 1700 cfs, simply put, the river is unwadeable. I perched up on the bank to try and spot any congregated schools of fish to no avail. Scattered.
With high water on the banks and water temps near 40°F fish were scarce. Carp were hiding in the flooded grass, smallmouth sought shelter within rocky confines, the only fish that were seemingly active were redhorse. I fished an orange Carp Crack that I had tied on a Korda hook and set to work dredging bottom. I hit bottom a few times and managed to get snagged on a submerged branch. As I pulled the woody debris to the surface, I spotted a few Rhyacophila sp. clinging its branches. I resumed nymphing and manage to foul hook a shorthead and a greater redhorse. I finally got my first take at the end of the drift; a nice golden.
After scrubbing bottom so many times, I had wondered if my hook was still sharp. The teflon coated finish had rubbed clean where the hook had penetrated so it was possible that the point had dulled a bit. Much to my chagrin, I answered my question a bit later when my fly line caught my shoe while preparing for a cast, driving the fly into my pinky, well past the barb. The hook point had lodged itself all the way to the hook bend with ease, like a hot knife through butter, resulting in possibly the deepest I have ever been hooked. The hook was so sharp that I didn't even feel any pain. Fortunately, I pulled out the deeply embedded hook with ease, as I always make it a point to crimp any barbs at the vise; not for the fish's benefit, but for mine. The bottom line is, those Korda hooks are the sharpest hooks I've ever seen or fished. Impressive.
Some redhorse fish porn to finish off the story:
Equipped with my standard arsenal of flies, I grabbed a dozen of my favorites and tossed them into my day's worth box. I grabbed my rod and hit the bank of the river. Amazing that at this time of year, flows on the Otter Tail can be higher than they were this spring after spring runoff. Here comes the broken record again, but this is just plain ridonkulous. With flows topping 1700 cfs, simply put, the river is unwadeable. I perched up on the bank to try and spot any congregated schools of fish to no avail. Scattered.
With high water on the banks and water temps near 40°F fish were scarce. Carp were hiding in the flooded grass, smallmouth sought shelter within rocky confines, the only fish that were seemingly active were redhorse. I fished an orange Carp Crack that I had tied on a Korda hook and set to work dredging bottom. I hit bottom a few times and managed to get snagged on a submerged branch. As I pulled the woody debris to the surface, I spotted a few Rhyacophila sp. clinging its branches. I resumed nymphing and manage to foul hook a shorthead and a greater redhorse. I finally got my first take at the end of the drift; a nice golden.
After scrubbing bottom so many times, I had wondered if my hook was still sharp. The teflon coated finish had rubbed clean where the hook had penetrated so it was possible that the point had dulled a bit. Much to my chagrin, I answered my question a bit later when my fly line caught my shoe while preparing for a cast, driving the fly into my pinky, well past the barb. The hook point had lodged itself all the way to the hook bend with ease, like a hot knife through butter, resulting in possibly the deepest I have ever been hooked. The hook was so sharp that I didn't even feel any pain. Fortunately, I pulled out the deeply embedded hook with ease, as I always make it a point to crimp any barbs at the vise; not for the fish's benefit, but for mine. The bottom line is, those Korda hooks are the sharpest hooks I've ever seen or fished. Impressive.
Some redhorse fish porn to finish off the story:
Redhorse love the rise.
September 17, 2010
Get the Ark Ready
Fancy flow charts don't lie. Flows on the Otter Tail downstream of Fergus Falls are currently running at 1760 cfs. That's higher than what we had for spring flows, even after an above average snow pack.
This is the third highest flow on the OT since I moved up here in 2004, and the fourth highest peak flow since flows were first recorded in 1931. Current flows are nearly nine times the median for flows this time of year.
Just when I thought I was gonna get my game back together and start the fall hunt for sea donkeys... FML.
This is the third highest flow on the OT since I moved up here in 2004, and the fourth highest peak flow since flows were first recorded in 1931. Current flows are nearly nine times the median for flows this time of year.
Other historical peak flows:
May 29, 2001: 2,040 cfs;
June 03, 2007: 2,000 cfs;
April 23, 2009: 2,020 cfs.
Just when I thought I was gonna get my game back together and start the fall hunt for sea donkeys... FML.
April 24, 2010
prairie busting
The last adventure before heading West.
I gave it a go at my trusty old spot and after a couple hours of one silver redhorse, one smallmouth, and a hard earned carp, I got in the Conestoga and left Dodge. My home watershed is the only one in the state still at flood stage (at flood stage since Fall of 2008). Since it's quite obvious that flow conditions won't improve in the near or possibly even long term, it was time to bust some sod and and plow some new waters.
I visited a few waters that I typically don't fish until later in the year. Not because the fish won't be there this time of year, but because spring runoff makes the water unbelievably murky. At this stage of the game, there really isn't much difference between chocolate milk and pea soup save the color of the silt and clays. It was time to play the heron and do some stalking.
Carp were spotted at two of the three spots I scouted. At the first location, chocolate milk flowed out of a wetland adjacent to a lake. I was surprised to not find any white suckers holding in reaches downstream of the wetland, but the water was presumably too turbid and silt laden for their liking. I made my way up a shallow basin of the wetland where I captured a few carp late last summer. Even after an hour of scanning the water, I could not make out any fish near the surface except for the tail of a pike, relentlessly chasing around a school of baitfish. Not tell tale bubble trails were visible, but I did witness silt plumes on three occasions. I was convinced at the time that those were carp plumes, and blindly fished a nymph in the plumes to no avail. Twice, I ended up dredging up a micro perch from the muddy depths. I don't think I've ever caught a gamefish this small, as they barely made three inches in length. In retrospective, those silt plumes were likely from the baitfish and the ensuing pike. Bust.
My other destination involved a prairie slough, a vestige of an old river backwater. Fish were holding near an inlet from another slough, tight to a conglomeration of sticks and branches woven together by a busy beaver. Not only was it near impossible to make out the silhouettes of a fish, those staggered sticks were water hazards, waiting to devour and entangle any fly that came near it. Get fouled up in that mess, and you blow any chance you ever had with those fish. It was tricky, and if it wasn't for patience, I would have left the scene after the first twenty minutes. But I had a manifest destiny with some carp. I tied on a brown Sea Donkey, as rubber legged flies can really help in low viz conditions. And, carp love crustaceans. Virtue paid off, as ten minutes later I was gazing into the golden sides of the ghost.
Now that I paid my dues and earned these fish, it's time to go have some fun and slay those beasts out in the wild, wild, West. Manifest Destiny.
I gave it a go at my trusty old spot and after a couple hours of one silver redhorse, one smallmouth, and a hard earned carp, I got in the Conestoga and left Dodge. My home watershed is the only one in the state still at flood stage (at flood stage since Fall of 2008). Since it's quite obvious that flow conditions won't improve in the near or possibly even long term, it was time to bust some sod and and plow some new waters.
I visited a few waters that I typically don't fish until later in the year. Not because the fish won't be there this time of year, but because spring runoff makes the water unbelievably murky. At this stage of the game, there really isn't much difference between chocolate milk and pea soup save the color of the silt and clays. It was time to play the heron and do some stalking.
Carp were spotted at two of the three spots I scouted. At the first location, chocolate milk flowed out of a wetland adjacent to a lake. I was surprised to not find any white suckers holding in reaches downstream of the wetland, but the water was presumably too turbid and silt laden for their liking. I made my way up a shallow basin of the wetland where I captured a few carp late last summer. Even after an hour of scanning the water, I could not make out any fish near the surface except for the tail of a pike, relentlessly chasing around a school of baitfish. Not tell tale bubble trails were visible, but I did witness silt plumes on three occasions. I was convinced at the time that those were carp plumes, and blindly fished a nymph in the plumes to no avail. Twice, I ended up dredging up a micro perch from the muddy depths. I don't think I've ever caught a gamefish this small, as they barely made three inches in length. In retrospective, those silt plumes were likely from the baitfish and the ensuing pike. Bust.
My other destination involved a prairie slough, a vestige of an old river backwater. Fish were holding near an inlet from another slough, tight to a conglomeration of sticks and branches woven together by a busy beaver. Not only was it near impossible to make out the silhouettes of a fish, those staggered sticks were water hazards, waiting to devour and entangle any fly that came near it. Get fouled up in that mess, and you blow any chance you ever had with those fish. It was tricky, and if it wasn't for patience, I would have left the scene after the first twenty minutes. But I had a manifest destiny with some carp. I tied on a brown Sea Donkey, as rubber legged flies can really help in low viz conditions. And, carp love crustaceans. Virtue paid off, as ten minutes later I was gazing into the golden sides of the ghost.
Now that I paid my dues and earned these fish, it's time to go have some fun and slay those beasts out in the wild, wild, West. Manifest Destiny.
April 20, 2010
Anywhere but here
A quick update: Fishing still sucks here. High water and seasonal stream closures have effectively kept me off of the productive waters. The closures won't be lifted until May 15, when most of the gamefish species are open to harvest. If stream conditions don't improve by then I'm gonna go postal. This early spring has really chunked things up bad. FML.
On the plus side, John Montana is still kicking ass. A 25 pounder last weekend; the smallest fish coming in at 14. A 30+ pounder was hooked by one of the group that trip, but not landed. Water is a bit cold yet, but the timing should be about close to perfect for when I arrive next week. I need to do some sumo wrestling.
On the plus side, John Montana is still kicking ass. A 25 pounder last weekend; the smallest fish coming in at 14. A 30+ pounder was hooked by one of the group that trip, but not landed. Water is a bit cold yet, but the timing should be about close to perfect for when I arrive next week. I need to do some sumo wrestling.
April 16, 2010
silver city
Word to your mother.
The silvers were poppin today. I also caught a delicious bass. That was all. P.S. the water was the color of pea soup. Left the scene and went on a scouting circuit. Found some clear water but spring flows are still quite high. I crept up on a few pods of white suckers but they all had a case of the lockjaw. Stingy bastards.
Not a productive outing, and definitely not a confidence boosting trip. High dirty water is shit and damn near no fish can see through that soup without the aid of scent. To show how fucked up the weather has been this spring, I saw leaping carp and rising silver redhorse. The water temps in shallow bays have already warmed up for moderate sucker spawning. This is a good month ahead of normal. On the plus side, many of the vulnerable sucker species should be done with the bulk of the spawn by the time May 1 rolls around, Black Saturday. May 1 is the spearing and bowfishing opener. I'll be pouring one for my homies.
March 24, 2010
High water rising
With all the hype on the flooding in the Red River valley, the Mighty Miss is up and out of it's banks and on the prowl. Access roads along the banks were closed due to the fact that they were 3 feet under water. Obviously fishing was out of the question.
Time for a little billy goating. No much on the way of fossils and the agate pickings were slim, however, I did manage to pick up a half-dollar sized nugget. I discovered a few spring creeks flowing out of the bluffs, including a couple of mini waterfalls, always cool.
The Mississippi is an awesome display of raw power. At over 95,000 cfs, the river is a force to be reckoned with. That's some serious Q. I watched 6 foot diameter cottonwoods float on by like a bunch of toothpicks.
The bright side: these high waters will bring some much needed life to the numerous backwater lakes. There's bound to be a few big feesh hunkering down in those refuges until the water backs down.
March 19, 2010
Spring
A sure sign of spring: snow geese.
On the way down to the river, the sky was filled with snow geese and canadian geese, both lessers and greaters, on their annual migration north. Coupled with the sound of rooster pheasants crowing to their harems of hens, the sky was busy with noise. The fields were bare and only the shelter belts held remnants of snow, a drastic differnce from two weeks ago, where nearly two feet of snow still blanketed the earth. You can guess where all that snow has ended up...
Flows were crazy, record for this time of year. I sound like a broken record, but it's been the damn truth; a stream gauge does not lie. Flows have been at or near record levels on the Otter Tail for the majority of the winter, and above the 80th percentile for nearly the entire duration of 2009 and all of 2010. High flows during the winter I can handle; the cold minimizes any melt and the river runs (fairly) clear. During the spring melt, however, the water is stained with suspended clay sediments, the turbidity making it nearly impossible to see into the water column. Besides the dispersal of fish escaping areas of high current, the high turbidity also affects a fish's ability to take a fly. You damn near need to bump them on the nose with a fly in order for them to notice it.
No surprise that the only fish I managed to catch were shorthead redhorse. These guys are the olympians of the river. They love fast water. Take a look at the size of their fins compared to the their body; they are a swimming rudder. I typically find shortheads and greater redhorse holding in the highest current areas of the river. These fish can swim.
Fishing was brutal. I foul hooked a few buffalo and a golden redhorse in addition to catching the shortheads. The only thing that will improve fishing at this point is time. Time to let the flows simmer down, and time to let the water temps rise. Once water temps begin to rise above 40°F fish will start getting active again. They're gonna get ready to get their schwerve on. Until then, I need to get my act together and get busy filling in a few bare spots in my fly boxes.
On the way down to the river, the sky was filled with snow geese and canadian geese, both lessers and greaters, on their annual migration north. Coupled with the sound of rooster pheasants crowing to their harems of hens, the sky was busy with noise. The fields were bare and only the shelter belts held remnants of snow, a drastic differnce from two weeks ago, where nearly two feet of snow still blanketed the earth. You can guess where all that snow has ended up...
Flows were crazy, record for this time of year. I sound like a broken record, but it's been the damn truth; a stream gauge does not lie. Flows have been at or near record levels on the Otter Tail for the majority of the winter, and above the 80th percentile for nearly the entire duration of 2009 and all of 2010. High flows during the winter I can handle; the cold minimizes any melt and the river runs (fairly) clear. During the spring melt, however, the water is stained with suspended clay sediments, the turbidity making it nearly impossible to see into the water column. Besides the dispersal of fish escaping areas of high current, the high turbidity also affects a fish's ability to take a fly. You damn near need to bump them on the nose with a fly in order for them to notice it.
No surprise that the only fish I managed to catch were shorthead redhorse. These guys are the olympians of the river. They love fast water. Take a look at the size of their fins compared to the their body; they are a swimming rudder. I typically find shortheads and greater redhorse holding in the highest current areas of the river. These fish can swim.
Fishing was brutal. I foul hooked a few buffalo and a golden redhorse in addition to catching the shortheads. The only thing that will improve fishing at this point is time. Time to let the flows simmer down, and time to let the water temps rise. Once water temps begin to rise above 40°F fish will start getting active again. They're gonna get ready to get their schwerve on. Until then, I need to get my act together and get busy filling in a few bare spots in my fly boxes.
February 23, 2010
Signs of spring?
Spring is creeping about, haunting my thoughts. The National Weather Service is busy forecasting for another major flood on the Red this spring as FEMA and the local media are busy hawking, pushing flood insurance down homeowner's throats. As people are starting to prep sandbags for a flood a month away, all this talk of melting snow and spring runoff has got me thinking sucker, white sucker.
Last year I made it out on February 25. Even though we are near the same amount of snow pack as this time last year (20+ inches), temps have remained fairly cool making it hard to think outside winter mode. Regardless, river flows are well above last period. The Otter Tail has been above the 80th percentile all winter long, and is now at record flows downstream of Fergus Falls as the Corps of Engineers plans maximum drawdown before spring run off. Flows will be high again this spring and will likely prove a challenge locating concentrated fish, and even harder getting a fly to them.
I've still got a few more winter missions planned before ice out. Late ice is always a hot time for filling the freezer and smoked fish. I need to get my share of tullibees this year. Meanwhile, I've been casual at the vise and my flies haven't really amounted to much other than a few Czech style nymphs ready for the first sign of the spring sucker run. Maybe it's the gray-skied daze or the stockpile of unused flies piled in my boxes from last year, but I'm just not motivated. Yet.
Maybe the first robin sighting or a day above freezing will break me from this funk. Just Maybe.
Last year I made it out on February 25. Even though we are near the same amount of snow pack as this time last year (20+ inches), temps have remained fairly cool making it hard to think outside winter mode. Regardless, river flows are well above last period. The Otter Tail has been above the 80th percentile all winter long, and is now at record flows downstream of Fergus Falls as the Corps of Engineers plans maximum drawdown before spring run off. Flows will be high again this spring and will likely prove a challenge locating concentrated fish, and even harder getting a fly to them.
I've still got a few more winter missions planned before ice out. Late ice is always a hot time for filling the freezer and smoked fish. I need to get my share of tullibees this year. Meanwhile, I've been casual at the vise and my flies haven't really amounted to much other than a few Czech style nymphs ready for the first sign of the spring sucker run. Maybe it's the gray-skied daze or the stockpile of unused flies piled in my boxes from last year, but I'm just not motivated. Yet.
Maybe the first robin sighting or a day above freezing will break me from this funk. Just Maybe.
November 7, 2009
the warrior
Another wet fall. Flows on the Otter Tail are three times the normal for this time of year, and the highest they've ever been on this date for the Red. Nothing like fishing spring flows in the fall. I showed up at one of my tail water spots only to find one of the gates open. Bad news. There's no way you'd catch a carp out of those whitewater flows. I gave the run a few drifts and ended up taking a digger, breaking my fall on my rod and wrist. I somehow managed to keep my rod from falling into the abyss but did not save the graphite from a few nasty scratches on the rocks. It'll still fish, but I also ended up with a dirty gash to the wrist. No pain, no gain.
I had zero visibility in the foam, and it was even worse further downstream. This is utter bullshit. I recall only one week out of the entire year where flows were normal, and the day I fished it the Corps raised flows that morning. This high dirty water sure gets old. My guess is that things won't improve anytime soon and these flows may become the new norm.
You have to be willing to spill some blood to run with the buffalo.
I fished a Tobacco Caddis and blindly fished a current seam. The water was so high I was all out of sorts and had some difficulty making structure. Fish were not holding where I thought they would be in the heavy current and it totally caught me off guard when I had resistance on the line. I didn't have enough line stripped in and had to manually set the hook by grabbing my line up high, fumbling around to get that line on the reel as fast as I could. I saw a pretty healthy wake and knew I didn't want to lose this fish. I gave myself plenty of chance to fail, but somehow pieced it together. Thankfully, the cold water temps (near 40°F) kept the fish docile and my incompetence at the rod luckily didn't alert the fish that it was hooked. The one thing about cold water buffalo is that they don't fight as robustly as they do in the summer. To my fortune, the fish stayed out of the heavy current and I was able to play it to shore without incident.
That was a solid fish. It's in the top five fish of the season and is a serious contender for number one overall. An oil tanker. I fished that heavy seam and hooked up with a trout sized carp. It smoked my fly. The fish torpedoed around breaking the surface a few times just like a rainbow. I stripped the fish in by hand (a rare occurrence for carp), chuckling that the fish was really a trout trapped in a carp's body.
Same fly, same current seam. Another Sea Donkey. This fish was longer and broader than the first buffalo. I had difficulty landing it in my under-equipped net. I scoped over the Brave, noting the battle scars to the cheeks and tattered dorsal fin. This old warrior has seen his share of battles. I struggled to bring the fish to hand, the brute strength poised in its muscles nearly overcame me. Pride aside, I raised the fish in salute of the seal of slime he adorned his victor with.
The spirit of the warrior shines on.
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