After a healthy rain yesterday, the river is in great shape. The river level is at 2.11Gh, (gauge height) and flow is 142 Cfs. With the water temps in the low 40’s you won’t find many fish going out of their way to chase flies zooming past their heads. When nymphing, make sure that you cover riffles and shelves with enough weight to slow everything down to a crawl. Larger #10-14 Zug Bugs and #12-14 orange butts should work fine. A number of nice fish in the 10″-14″ range were taken on larger than usual, (a #4-6 instead of #10-12) streamers last weekend, so keep fishing them big and slow.
If dries are more your speed, Midge activity above Falls Rd should pick up in the next few days. If ringing fish are spotted, we usually start with grey, cream or olive hackled midge or cdc midge in a #22-24. If bulging fish are present, Brassies, both with and without beads, RS2’s and WD40’s sized #20 and smaller work great on fish taking emergers.If you find that the fish are tough now, remember that the Sulphurs are only 4 months away.
Note: Gauge height is measured at the Falls Rd. access, (check last report for details) and will be featured in future stream reports to confirm the USGS flow readings.