Last night I discovered that my license had been soaked during my last outing causing the lettering to stick to its plastic sleeve. I bit the bullet, and decided to spend first light working in the lab in order to reprint my license rather than working the stream banks for hungry smallies. After a frustrating 4-5hrs of work, I finally caught the bus and made my way down town to the river by 1pm.
I began by working the usually first hole (Man Hole Pool) with not even a hint of a fish, and made my way upstream. I landed the nice bronze back above on a marabou streamer possessing a dark-blue flashabou tail (in the style of Jack Gartside's streamers). Three strips across the current, and WHAM, this little fella was running a bit of line out. It amazes how quickly small mouth strike a fly upon its fall to the water and is a strong testament to their awareness. I spotted several flat heads in this same small pool (Kitty Pool), but I could not get them interested in this streamers, nor did the pay any attention to different color zonkers I pitched at them.
The storm clouds rolled in, and I hiked downstream to get out of their path; although, a storm never did develop. I finished my day at a downstream section where the tidal range of the river begins-crabs galore. They are so cranky that they reach for and yank on my flies when the pass by. Hopefully next time I can bring one to hand and snap a good photo. While fishing a channel that I had not yet explored, I found a section full of deep swift water flowing over small to medium sized boulders. The same fly above enticed an aggressive strike from the largest smallie I have seen to date. I also was too quick on the hook set and yanked a olive zonker right from the jaws of a massive large mouth; stripping with two hands after casting downstream produced this strike. Missed one surface strike as well on a large zonker and could not tell what type of fish was responsible. Today's biggest surprise was the large bow fin that followed my zonker too close and quickly booked for cover-hopefully I can add that toothy fishy to my list before the summer ends! No gar today. Ended the day casting to a huge carp that was pushing 30-40 pounds in a side channel pool (look out hole), but he/she took no interest in my offering.
An awesome day despite the morning's anxiety!
Conditions: Mostly sunny, air temps ranged from 85-95. Rather windy, which made casting tricky. Water is very low, and extremely clear. The new downstream channel (all the way to the right - Heron's Nest Run) contained lots of deep green water, but the tide was in and on the way out. Amazed at the amount of weed growth since the last report. Located a rather large small mouth under an old concrete pylon in the retention channel. Several other anglers fishing the islands area, and they reported success with large catfish using spinning gear.
Fly Selection: Zonkers (white and barred olive-more follows with olive), marabou streamers (black and yellow w/olive hackle olive), top water deer hair minnows (very few casts). The black marabou streamer produced the sole fish and a follow by the largest smallie I have seen fishing this area to date.
