March 1, 2012

Black Canyon of Bear River 3_1_2012

I fished the river today and had it all to myself. The weather was cold at 25 degrees F with intermittent snow flurries. There was a 4-6 knot breeze from the South. I fished the same section of the river that I fished for my furled line review. On that day I was having difficulty getting the fish to take most anything that I offered; I think I was offering too large of a fly at #16. Today I could see that they were taking small BWO duns on the surface, so I presented a Barr's #18-20 olive Vis-a-Duns. This worked really well catching most of the fish. I also used a #18 BWO parachute and a #18 BWO parachute emerger with trailing shuck. They worked well also. None of the fish wanted anything subsurface; at least not anything I was offering them.

Because the dry flies were so small I had a harder time seeing them, therefore I put a 3/4 inch section of Rio Kahuna LT on the tippet and secured it where the loop-to-loop connection with the line was. This gave me something to see even though I could not always see the flies. If a fish rose near the Kahuna then I'd lift the rod. Most of the time I hooked the fish.

An average fish
I used the Kasugo-4209 with a 13.5 foot Stewart HiVis hand tied line. This worked a lot better with the breeze than the furled lines. The HiVis line was much less affected by the breeze and it didn't drag the fly like the furled lines did. I used a 4 foot 6x fluorocarbon tippet.

My box -- I don't carry much any more
I did hook one quite large fish today.  I would estimate that she was 15-16 inches, but she threw the fly about half way through the fight. What a disappointment. Most of the fish were 8-12 inches, with the larger fish giving a good fight.

Another in the net
One thing I learned today was that although Glacier Gloves keep my fingers warmer than fingerless fishing gloves, I could not hold any fish! The Glacier Gloves I have made the fish really slippery.

A little native cutthroat

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

Here is a video of today's highlights. I had the camera angled too low so the view is a little odd, sorry. Still, you can get the gist of the fishing. You may want to view it in YouTube.



4 comments:

  1. Tom.

    Thanks for the video. I'm new to Tankara and find fishing upstream very difficult. To the sides fine downstream fine but upstream tough. It's all about the line control. Do you have any tips please?

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    Replies
    1. Try a level line instead of the furled line. You should have better control in the wind with the level line.

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  2. I should also ask if you can do a picture of the indicator too, we don't have them in England?

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    Replies
    1. I will be doing a blog entry on this product. I think the Rio Kahuna LT is one of the best non-cast distrupting indicators out there. Watch for the blog entry soon.

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