[fredaevans]

Wild morning; new 'job' starting Monday morning, said 'fiddle it, I'm hitting the river.'

4 hours of fishing: 6 hooked, 4 landed, 2 to take home, and flat missed setting the hook on 2 more.

A good morning (raining like a Cow peeing on a flat rock or no) to be ALIVE!
:smokin:

 

[highlander2]

Fred

The corect term is " rain'in like a cow piss'in on a flat rock" and it's a term we use quite often around here. And when you can have it like that then your just plain livin right. Going to have to get down there soon with Aaron and Jack to experience the good fishing. I have heard all the stories, have to see it for myself.

Brian

 

[fredaevans]

Brian, as with all board members. . . . .

Your bed has fresh sheets, the pillow's fluffy and dinners on Joan and I. And drag those two reprobates (sp?) with you.


We have a local fly board (great group of fellows!!) and we did a 'beach breakfast' up on the Holy Waters this morning. Glad the idea was to chase trout ..... from about 2 miles below the dam the Rogue was completly blown out!! Water flow had to be three times what I was fishing in yesterday morning ... and milk choc. brown.

It takes a hell of a lot of rain to get that to happen; but a not to worry thing as most of the summer runs are way up at the top and above the first real feeder stream that was pumping mud.

 

[juro]

Fred -

You're killin' me! Great day, wish I were there too instead of dreaming of spring.

cheers,
Juro

 

[Andy Wren]

looking for cheap flight from London

Oh well ,just dreaming think I,ll go and bother some wee grayling tommorow ,and the on boxing day the same .
Febuary brings the first chance of a salmon .fancy day or two up in scotland .
BTW just out of work catching the bus home ,20or more multinational Santas ringing bells and all that jollystuff ,they collide with a slightly smaller group of Hari Chrishnas the resulting good natured mellee and dance was a sight to see .
Happy season to all my buddys on this board

 

[fredaevans]

Man! am I glad I went out yesterday .. rain or no!

River was running at about 1700-2000 cfs where I was fishing ...

The following numbers for stream flow is about 10 miles up stream to Dodge Bridge, and another 10'ish to Elk Creek. Flows below are from 2pm this afternoon.

River/Station Current
Stage/Flow When
Elk Ck near Trial, OR 2340 cfs
Rogue/Dodge Bridge 6520 cfs !!!!!!!!


:eyecrazy:

 

[flytyer]

Fred,

Sounds like you guys are getting some of what we have been dealing with for the past 7 weeks. Glad to hear you had a good day that should make up for those recent trips with no fish despite all the fish in your river.

I took a drive up the Skagit and Sauk the other day with my wife to see if the river got fishable above the Sauk or above the Suiattle. The Sauk was so full of sand that it had the color of liquid sand and the visibility to match. The Skagit above the Sauk was a nice green with a tinge of brown with nice visibility. The downside was that the Skagit between Marblemount and Rockport was full of fishman because that 8 miles of river was the only clear water with the Sauk still out and the Skagit out below the confluence of the Sauk.

It looks like this is going to be a patience trying, combat fishing kind of winter until or if the Sauk clears. It is really disheartening though when there are 10 folks in a run who park and don't move or fish through. Then you add the sleds with another 3 or 4 fisherman in each sled to the mix. What I saw reminded me of opening day of trout fishing in Pennsylvania when I was a wee one.

And of course our local newpaper just had to report that there were limits of hatchery steelhead being taken in the clear water between Marblemount and Rockport so that everyone would know were the clear water was. Don't you just love meat fishers.

 

[fredaevans]

"Don't you just love meat fishers?"

No.

:smokin:


Actually, this kind of flow is very unusual; perhaps a couple of times during the winter. This area being 'high desert' actually only gets about 1/3'rd (or less) of what you'd see in Seattle in a normal year.

A good thing! Also, even when we get 'gully washers' the top mile or more of the river will still be fairly low and gin clear.

 

[pupafoo]

wait till I get there

Fred,

When I get there, the fishing will stop.
It's been proven.

-Sing

 

[fredaevans]

FT, it gets more 'interesting' as the day ..

goes along.

Sprinkles all afternoon, about 6pm it starts to POUR RAIN, as in "Hawaiian Pinapple Express." At about 10:30pm temp hits 32 degrees and now we have over an inch of snow and it's coming down in silver dollar sized snow flakes.

Don't like the weather, wait an hour. Sheesh.


And Sing my fav. buddy, don't worry about the timing. In the fish arn't here, I'll take you over to the Chetco, or lower Rogue. Too Cool in the new motor home.
:whoa:

 

[flytyer]

Fred,

We have snow above 2,000 feet and rain below that. The passes are predicted to get 1 to 4 feet of snow by tomorrow morning. In fact, Mount Baker ski area already has 100 inches of snow on the ground.

The Skagit is at a very fishable flow, as is the Sauk. The problem with both of them is the amount of sand and clay in them. The Sauk looked like it was filling in the various holes with sand as the sand settled out. I'm sure that with each high water this year, the sand will moved downriver. This might be one of those years with little or no days of fishable visibility on the Sauk. And the Skagit below the Sauk is being taken out by the Sauk.

Some of my favorite water this time of year is miles below the Sauk confluence in the middle Skagit. Unfortunately, it has not been fishable since mid-October due to turbitity or high flow.

 

[fredaevans]

Yuck, the bar at the conful. of the Sauk and Sueattle (sp?)

used to be one of my fav. places to fish in years gone by. Some time I'll tell you the story of an old fishing partner of mine (Dale Brown) who figured out how to get very inventive on loosing 5 HUMUNGUS steelhead and a 10# Dolly off that beach. (Hint: he landed the Dolly only to have a coyote drag the thing off the beach into the woods.)

Well, it will be a few days before the Rogue gets back into shape. In 18 hours the flow at Dodge Bridge (about 10 miles up-stream from Medford) went from 1700 cfs on Saturday morning to just under 10,000 cfs! Back down to about 7,000 now.

You gotta wonder how the fish deal with this sort of thing.
:razz:

 

[flytyer]

Fred,

I know the bar you refered to well. One must walk or boat into it for over 10 years now. I have a very found memory of walking in to it (and as you know, it is a 1 mile walk) one fine March day some 7 years ago. I made the mistake of stringing up my big 16 ft 2-hander at the parking area and cranking down the drag quite a bit to keep the line from being pulled out by brush on my way in.

When I got to the bar, found it deserted, and so decided to start fishing in the bottom third of the run. I simply yanked out my line since I alrady had the fly attached to the tippet and started to fish. Big mistake because I neglected to loosen the drag and disc drags can be cranked down way to tightly for 12 pound tippets.

About cast number 10, a guide with 2 dudes beached at the top of the run and the dudes stated fishing. The guide wandered down the bar to see how I was doing (he was someone I knew) and about the time he was half way down, I had a fish pick up my large spey fly about 20 feet in to the cast around 100 feet out. The fish didn't feel that big, I thought it was about 13 pounds, so I didn't even give a thought to the amount of drag I had on the reel.

The fish first moved over toward the bar and upstream and I simply stripped in the line to keep it under tension. Then the fish decided it was time to move to the other side of the river and began to do so in a rather rapid fashion. The line was slipped through my fingers I had stripped in and when the fish got on the reel..... Well let's just say it stopped the fish rather abruptly. The fish came out of the water when this happened and the tippet snapped like it was cobweb. That's when I realized I forgot to back off the drag.

The real aggrevating part about this was the fish happened to be one of the Skagit monsters. The guide finished his walk down to see me and told me that I wasn't supposed to break off those over 20 pound fish, especially when his dudes could see it all.

Yes, I said a few words about what a dumb &%#& I was.

 

[Nailknot]

Sauk Hope

The lower Sauk actually looked to be clearing a bit when I visited a couple days ago. The lower river looks like a moonscape with acres of sand and massive log jams. That's where all the eagles are right now too- hundreds. The river is very braided down low. It will be intersting to see when/where/if she decides on a main channel.

 

[fredaevans]

"FT," I think we've all 'been there ...

done that."

There are times where (high triple dig. IQ or no) I can be as 'dumb as a stump.' 'I feel your pain.'

:smokin: