5-5-24 New River Exploration
Finally got a break from being an adult with responsibilities and was able to get back out on the water. The plan was to float a new section of a river that we first explored last fall with some pretty good success. The flows were a little higher than average and the forecast was calling for rain all day. Perfect conditions to see if we could move some fish with streamers.
My friends Adam and Jim joined me on the float, we met at the boat launch around 6:00AM and got everything set up for the long float. Once I set up the boat and anchored it up, I went out with a sculp snack jig streamer while I waited for the other guys to get set up. I started jigging the streamer slowly on the bottom and had a hard take that I managed to hook into. First fish of the day before we even launched the boat, great start to the day and it was a nice wild brown too.
Adam started out nymphing and Jim was throwing streamers. This was a great way to explore and see if we could find some more happy fish. We anchored up about 50 yards below the boat launch and decided to pick apart some really fishy looking water. I had one fish hit a sculp snack I was jigging through a run, but that was it.
I started flipping rocks and found a lot of large mayflies and stoneflies. I was surprised with the amount of insect life and knew if I was going to switch to nymphing later, I would likely use a pretty large nymph on the point compared to the small bugs I typically fish on pressured waters.
A few minutes later, Adam hooked into a nice rainbow trout nymphing a great run that come off of a side channel when the river split around an island. We continued going downstream and anchored up again in some great looking runs. Jim took his nymphing set up and fished his way up a side channel to the head of that run. Adam and I stayed low and fished a deeper channel off the main river. As I worked the run with my jig streamer, I heard Jim yelling and I looked upstream and saw a nice bend in his rod. I grabbed the net out of the boat and quickly moved upstream to help him land his fish. It was a great brown trout that took a soft hackle pheasant tail.
Jim’s brown nymphing the side channel
After that fish, Jim took over on the oars and I grabbed my streamer rod with a sinking line and a D&D streamer. There was a really fast run with a lot of slack water on the inside seam, I figured that would be where the fish would be holding. I casted across the slack water and about 3 feet into the really fast run, hoping to work the fly into the slack and move a fish. We didn’t make it 5 yards before an aggressive brown smashed the D&D right in the middle of the fast water. From the fight the fish put up, I thought it was going to be pretty damn big or potentially foul hooked. To my surprise, it was neither, just a really healthy fish that put up an incredible fight.
Streamer eating brown in some really fast water.
After releasing that fish, I casted right back into the fast water and had another brown hammer the streamer. I kept it buttoned for a few seconds before he finally shook the fly off. Great start for the day.
As we continued to float the river, Adam worked a nymph rig under an indicator with a two fly set up. He was pretty consistently hooking into fish and one gave him a heck of a battle. Fortunately, Adam was able to win that one and we got the fish into the net. A very healthy looking brown that put up a crazy good fight.
Great fighting brown
We got into a few sections that were pretty technical rowing, Jim did a great job navigating us through the obstacles but those same obstacles made for some great nymphing water. Even though it was raining hard and I knew tight lining would be tough, I gave it a whirl and was able to pull a few fish out of some pocket water. Having your sighter stick to the rod can really be frustrating, but I used a lot of water load casting to help get the flies out far enough to fish.
After all of the fun pocket water, we got into a section that was a little calmer and easier to row. Adam wanted to try rowing the drift boat for the first time so we got him behind the sticks. He did a great job and was able hold a nice distance to the bank. Jim ended up landing a great rainbow on a streamer and shortly after I got a brown and a small mouth.
The rest of the day was a lot more of the same, we continued to float down, mixing up between streamers and some nymph fishing. The most successful streamers were a yellow D&D as well as an olive dungeon. We managed to pull in a few more smallies which were a blast on the fly rod and found some more great water to explore on future trips.
One of my favorite things to do is try out new areas to fish, sometimes they don’t amount to much, but this was one of those days where it seemed to pay off.
