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Fishing ForecastFishing Report

Still Waiting for the Drakes…

By June 16, 2011April 14th, 2018No Comments

Still no sign of the Brown Drake, but they will hatch someday. The nymphs are around but I think we need a couple of days of warm weather to get them going. Once the hatch begins make sure you have both spinner patterns and duns for the fishing. On a hot sunny day the spinner fall will occur around 6:00 to 7:00pm and you will need to use a lighter tippet (5x) and patterns such as Harrop’s Hackled Spinner and Para Spinner in size 10. As the sun sets put on stronger tippets (3x or 4x) on bigger patterns like Neally’s Brown Drake and big Parachutes in sizes 8 and 10 and get ready for some heart stopping action. I like to position myself looking into the sun set and that usually means fishing upstream. I get some of my best fish at this time. Once the hatch has started if we get any cool, overcast days the Drake can come off in the morning and afternoons, so it pays to check out the conditions throughout the day.

The Nature Conservancy has been inconsistent. I expect the fishing to improve in the next week and look to the big PMD’s (sizes 16-18) and small Baetis (size 20-24). The wind has been a problem lately and on those days try throwing bigger terrestrials like beetles and ants. The water level is still low and the fish are bunched up right now. As the days warm the evening fishing will start to improve. With big crowds on the lower Creek I like the Preserve at night because it has fewer fishermen.

All our other waters are still high and unfishable. Levels are still increasing and it will be awhile before we can fish them. Penny Lake and Lake Creek are stocked on a regular basis and are a great place to take a kid fishing.