Dickerson this past weekend

[Salmo trutta]

The water levels were very low and clear, probably perfect. I made a trip in the afternoon with the whole family and our bikes to help us get to the top of the outflow quicker. I even had Ryan in a tow behind trailer thing that held three rods, tackle and food for the day. It was just a little tuff jumping the logs on the trail but I think he enjoyed it.

Back to the fishing. The last couple of weekends have been pretty good with good numbers of small smallmouth and at least one decent fish around 12-14" on jigs. A few weeks ago I saw a guy fishing a small FinS minnow with no weight and letting it drift in the current, inside the "chute" of the outflow. he was hooking up consistantly just under the surface while dead drifting.

So on Saturday I tried casting a small floating rapala and let it swing in the current. The fish smacked it almost every cast while it was on the surface or just underneath. Not reeling in, just letting it dead drift. Gabe's friend caught quite a few doing this too. If this rain doesn't ruin the river, I'll try a fly rod or even a spey rod doing the same thing with some sort of a minnow imitation on a floating line. Most fish were around 6 inches or so but there was a lot of them.

Top water in January. Not bad uh? Pretty soon the stonefly hatch should kick in on the lower portions well below the outflow. We just need a warming trend and a stone fly imitation nymph that somehow stays in the surface film. The fish won't touch an adult and won't touch a nymph that sinks below the surface for some reason. This is from past years experience anyway.

Sorry not a true fly fishing report but a fishing report that could be useful for fly fishermen.

I also fished Great Seneca Creek for about an hour with the 3wt and nymphs. Managed one decent size rainbow in the fast water. Just because it's winter doesn't mean the fish are off the feed.

[Bottom Knocker]

Great Post! caught a bunch of nice crappie in the canal next to the trial a couple years a go..

Can you tell me the difference between a spey and a fly rod??

Thanks!

[Salmo trutta]

The difference between a spey and a "normal" fly rod is about 5 feet normally. The spey rod is longer with a large butt section for one hand and the other hand goes above the reel. This lets you throw and exagerated roll cast which is called a single spey cast, capable of 60 feet. Then you can add in a double spey cast or a double haul and it's insanely easy to flip out 60 or 70 feet of line if you load the rod properly. They are usually called two handed rods in the striped bass world and are very popular for surf fishing where distance matters more. They aren't really made for fishing from boats as you could break a long rod when the fish dives under the boat. But they are ideal for rivers, surf, jetties, inlets, and the like. First invented in the River "Spey" in Scottland and hence got their name from there. Very popular with west coast fly fishermen, salmon and steelheaders mostly.

Come to fly fest, there will be some there I'm sure. Plus we can practice casting them in the water with good current flows to adequately load the rods. Too cool. Just getting the cast right is rewarding, catching anything is icing on the cake.

I hit the canal near the outflow there as there is some kind of pipe/culvert that feeds into the canal. This year there are all types of down trees and over hanging tree limbs next to the outflow of the culvert and it's next to impossible to land a float and a jig into thier without hitting the trees. It's worse than last year anyway. but I did hook up the few times I got a jig in there. Lost both fish and left for the river because I had kids with me.

[Jeffrey Rasband]

Jon let me know the next time you go. How warm was the water? I was there a month ago or so and the water was cold... couldn't even tell it was discharge water. I love fishing there when its snowing! nothing like fishing topwater in the nasty weather.

[Salmo trutta]

HI Jeff,

It's always discharge water no matter what day or time. The plant is a garbage incinerating station and they are permitted to incinerate x tons of trash per day to produce x amount of electricity that they store for future use. So no matter if it's 0 degrees or 100, the power plant works just as hard and still needs the water to cool its turbines.


I learned this only the other day from talking to a neighbor who had her hands in the environmental permitting processes.

So it was relatively warmer than the outside, by how much I don't know. I wouldn't want to jump in but is was low enough to wade accross to the island on the other side of the outflow.

BTW... the bigger fish are down lower, far below the outflow but it's consistant action of very small fish up top. With a few exceptions like there always is.