Oops! Three generators running!
Much to my surprise, but should have expected it due to the recent rains, there were three generators going when we hit the water first thing in the morning. My client, Steve, mainly wanted to gain knowledge, learn more techniques and improve his skills. We started off with a size 16 tungsten bead head blood red midge, #1 split shot, indicator, set about five feet deep. We rowed up to about 50 feet above the MDC boat ramp, anchored against the bank and fished out toward the seam. After catching some fish here, noticed the seam the was moving away from us and was now out about 15 feet. Good indication the water was dropping. Checked the generation, and they had shut down to two generators so the river was dropping. Pulled anchor and rowed upstream to the Rocking Chair area, and we stripped the olive filopflume using an intermediate sink tip. Another technique for Steve to add to his "bag of tricks". Caught a few this way.
As the water continued to drop, we rigged up with a Copper Dun, size 18, with a #1 split shot and set at 3 feet. We pulled anchor and drifted down to the Lookout Island catching several fish along the way. At Lookout Island we noticed fish rising on the seam below the island so we switched to a 7.5′ 4 weight rod and put on a size 18 black zebra soft hackle using 5X tippet. This proved productive and Steve, who had never fished soft hackles before found this was one of his favorite techniques.
After lunch we drifted a size 18 Burgundy Midge, set 5 feet deep still with a #1 split shot. Caught fish on the deep, high bank size of the river. Half way through the drift, changed to the Copper Dun. At the end of the trip, we noticed another nice seam. Anchored on the seam and changed back to the black zebra soft hackle and he caught more fish with this method. Probably caught 30 plus fish with the largest 16-17 inches.
Stan