2019 maggot fish gazing and shit talking

[teleee]

Good to finally feel the sun!Attachment 275663Attachment 275664Attachment 275665

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Nice! I am dying to get on the water, I went to check on my boat and it is behind an 8 foot high pile of snow turned to ice the city stacked in front of it! I hear the lower Gunnison has been fishing well, the temperatures might mean I am out with with a pick and shovel digging the fucking thing out this weekend!

[neckdeep]

[KenJongIll]

Nice pics people..
Got a chance to go fishing again Sunday. Got some beta that March Browns, Quill Gordon’s, Blue Quills had been going off on the Davidson, so I stomp back there instead of a blue line I had in mind. Beautiful bluebird day in the 60’s...what could go wrong?
A nice weekend after what seemed like rain for every weekend since November is what was wrong.
Every swinging dick within 4 states was there. I find a pull off with no apparent cars nearby, go down the water and some dude, appears 50 ft from me upstream around the bend. Doesn’t stop, say sorry and head back up but starts to cast. Immediately hang up and starts cursing...I watch, say fuck it and go back to the truck. There was no pull off upstream anywhere close, so no clue where he came from.

Pull over at a picnic area (mistake 2) just to take a look. Only people there were 2 old ladies that were eating lunch. Got out just to look at the water, saw a big rise in the pool...grabbed my rig and backtrack down stream a ways and get in the water. I hadn’t made two casts when these yahoos show up..

They hustle down real quick bait up with what appeared to be worms and big weights and start chucking. (It’s a C&R Flies only section). The dude on the right was using a surf rod, upside down for style points. I stay there a minute still casting to where I saw the rise, till dude splashes his rig in the same place. I throw my hands up and yell something...and proceed to splash through the hole as loud as possible. I tell them they are illegal (fishing). Get to the parking area and 4 more people are getting out their gear trying to untangle the biggest bird nest I’ve ever seen. I tell them they can’t use that gear there, throw my shit in the truck and get in. One dude comes over and asks, “we can’t fish here?” I said not with that you can’t...he didn’t understand me....
Rest of the day I was just pissed off. Caught one Pune, and broke one off due to my shitty knot skills.

[new yabyum]

Nice fish. Banks look to be stabilizing.

[lifelinksplit]

Nice! I am dying to get on the water, I went to check on my boat and it is behind an 8 foot high pile of snow turned to ice the city stacked in front of it! I hear the lower Gunnison has been fishing well, the temperatures might mean I am out with with a pick and shovel digging the fucking thing out this weekend!

Yep. My boat is still behind a decent snowbank but my buddies wasnt so I ditched bridger for the weekend to hit a pretty obvious montana tailwater. Think I might just hitch a tow strap to the trailer and give er hell...but a lot of our ramps are still covered or seal launch only.

[neckdeep]

Nice fish. Banks look to be stabilizing.

Yeah, the shelf ice is mostly gone but the hiking is actually a lot worse now than it was. Last week there was a bombproof crust until 3pm. Now the snowpack has gotten really rotten; even snowshoes were worthless by noon yesterday.

update. snow melted down to 12" or less, all shelf ice gone. Access lots plowed, ramps a bit messy at some.

[Phall]

Nice pics people..
Got a chance to go fishing again Sunday. Got some beta that March Browns, Quill Gordon’s, Blue Quills had been going off on the Davidson, so I stomp back there instead of a blue line I had in mind. Beautiful bluebird day in the 60’s...what could go wrong?
A nice weekend after what seemed like rain for every weekend since November is what was wrong.
Every swinging dick within 4 states was there. I find a pull off with no apparent cars nearby, go down the water and some dude, appears 50 ft from me upstream around the bend. Doesn’t stop, say sorry and head back up but starts to cast. Immediately hang up and starts cursing...I watch, say fuck it and go back to the truck. There was no pull off upstream anywhere close, so no clue where he came from.

Pull over at a picnic area (mistake 2) just to take a look. Only people there were 2 old ladies that were eating lunch. Got out just to look at the water, saw a big rise in the pool...grabbed my rig and backtrack down stream a ways and get in the water. I hadn’t made two casts when these yahoos show up..

They hustle down real quick bait up with what appeared to be worms and big weights and start chucking. (It’s a C&R Flies only section). The dude on the right was using a surf rod, upside down for style points. I stay there a minute still casting to where I saw the rise, till dude splashes his rig in the same place. I throw my hands up and yell something...and proceed to splash through the hole as loud as possible. I tell them they are illegal (fishing). Get to the parking area and 4 more people are getting out their gear trying to untangle the biggest bird nest I’ve ever seen. I tell them they can’t use that gear there, throw my shit in the truck and get in. One dude comes over and asks, “we can’t fish here?” I said not with that you can’t...he didn’t understand me....
Rest of the day I was just pissed off. Caught one Pune, and broke one off due to my shitty knot skills.

Hope you got license plates and called that in to DNR/FWP/your local entity. Fuck those fucking fucks!

[stapes]

Things been heating up. Seeing surface activity on lunch breaks past few days.





This guy had a pretty good wound just below his head but seemed to be thriving and healthy otherwise. Great dry fly take that made my day.

[Binky]

Several years ago, a decrepit dam was removed above my favorite local wild and sea run trout stream. The dam removal was done in the most efficient and budget way possible. As a result of its haphazard removal, the stream was choked to death with fine sediment. Over the last few years, I have watched the stream fester through warm summer temps. Nothing survived, not even panfish.
It has been heartbreaking.
Fast forward to the last year. We have had a lot of rain, much of it torrential. This precipitation has essentially flushed the stream clean. I have been checking on it and observing a slow return to life. The freestone bottom is visible again. The banks have regrown healthy vegetation. And, insects are visibly active (not just horse flies).
Yesterday, the weather was beautiful: sunny, no wind, 50 degrees. I took walk over to look at the stream and I saw a slight movement. Upstream, I saw something even better as a trout rose to take down a caddis. I grabbed my gear and fished for an hour, the first time I wet a line in this stream in 4 years. I am excited to report that my little stream has returned to life. The fish are not trophies, but they are to me. I shared my photos with a few CT state fisheries folks. The stream has not been stocked. These are wild fish or, more likely, young sea runs of the Iloki strain.

[neckdeep]

For all the hand wringing over their fragility, trout and bugs have a surprising ability to reestablish themselves. For example, you can't botch a dam removal any worse than having a 300ft tall dam catastrophically fail. When the Teton Dam failed in the 70s, the inundated portion of the canyon walls collapsed from the weight of saturation. 30 miles of the original riverbed was obliterated. We are not talking smothered by some silt. We are talking gone and buried under millions of tons of landslide debris up to 30 ft deep. Gone. The river had to make an entirely new channel through a 30 mile debris field of muck, rock and stumps.

Less than two decades later, the fishing was awesome. It still is. People pay $600/day to take a guided float in the canyon. Binky, your river will see glory days once again.

[L8APX]

Huge is where it's at


And other brown things

[plugboots]

Yeah, Binky, they may be sea runs, but I bet they were hiding in there somewhere, probably upstream of the dam or in a tiny side stream. Nature abhors a vacuum. Good for you.

[snapt]

[teleee]

Nice Snapt! We are looking forward to getting to your hood soon.

Took Mrs Teleee out to hit some of the local waters. Its been a blast reliving the sport through a newbys eyes! She gets as excited at a miss as she does as a hookup!

[mooseknuckles]

[neckdeep]

Nice fish.

Soooo....you changed from a puffy to a windbreaker while fighting that fish? Impressive. I should learn how to do that. That would come in handy for when I fall in while landing a trout.

Myself, I fell off the shelf ice into the river. Twice. The second time, while I was landing the big tiger, I went down into the mud face first.

[::: :::]

Huge is where it's at

I laffed





(i hope you had nitrile gloves for that application)

[snapt]

It's a steelhead thing, Jerry, good memory.

Soooo....either you changed from a puffy to a windbreaker while fighting that fish or the guy with his back turned caught something else?

My buddy in the puffy, we had an epic 50 yard stretch of bank piled with good streamer eaters.

[neckdeep]

It's a steelhead thing, Jerry, good memory.



My buddy in the puffy, we had an epic 50 yard stretch of bank piled with good streamer eaters.

Was that you floating Bates to Big Eddy last thursday? Two guys with a raft?

[snapt]

Floated S Bates to Bates Tuesday and Bates to Big Eddy Weds, Blue striped Clacka both days.

[kokomas]

Got my first bonefish this January, in Honduras. Not sure why I look so pissed, I was really happy after screwing up all day with the guide

[warthog]

Biggest fish this year, and I forget my damn phone at home. I caught a 32- 36" snook in the golf pond behind my house. Unreal. I knew they were in there(just not this particular pond), Tarpon too. Just never seen one this big. I caught him on a bass lure- RattL Trap. Unfortunately, it was a double treble hook, so it embedded in his lower gill plate, along with his lip. The lip hook came right out, but the lower one was all sorts of in there. I opted to cut the treble off the lure, and give him a chance. I guess it was good I forgot the phone, because there honestly was no time to take the photo.

Is leaving the hook in the best option here? I do crimp the barbs, even on the trebles, but it doesn't help much. Thinking of setting these up with single circle hooks instead.

[lifelinksplit]

Did good on his first boat trip.

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[Mr. Mike]

Biggest fish this year, and I forget my damn phone at home. I caught a 32- 36" snook in the golf pond behind my house. Unreal. I knew they were in there(just not this particular pond), Tarpon too. Just never seen one this big. I caught him on a bass lure- RattL Trap. Unfortunately, it was a double treble hook, so it embedded in his lower gill plate, along with his lip. The lip hook came right out, but the lower one was all sorts of in there. I opted to cut the treble off the lure, and give him a chance. I guess it was good I forgot the phone, because there honestly was no time to take the photo.

Is leaving the hook in the best option here? I do crimp the barbs, even on the trebles, but it doesn't help much. Thinking of setting these up with single circle hooks instead.

IMO that was the best thing to do. Yeah, treble hooks are a bitch to get out (including of yourself). I dug one into the meaty part of my palm years ago when I did a lot more gear fishing.

[warthog]

It honestly was lodged in an area that shouldn't cause him problems. Nothing vital there, and not affecting the gills. I just hate it. He was huge. Hoping the hook rusts out quickly.
He got double hooked when the damn thing jumped about a foot out of the pond and scared the hell out of me and my 8 year old daughter. The look on her face was priceless. To see that monster come out of the water on a 100 yard by 40ish yard golf pond was dramatic. I didn't get a measure on it, but it came up to my daughter's armpit. Bringing the phone next time.