Fished the LMF on Friday afternoon and today. Caught fish in all 3 zones. Mostly rainbows with a few browns. Not the usual numbers of fish I catch in BB, but almost all the fish were 12-14". A couple around 18". Water is high in Zone 1 due to the dam maintenance, but it made it a little bit of an adventure finding the fish. Added split shot to almost all the areas I fished in Zone 1. Keep it low. Go to flies: hares ear, pheasantt tail. zebra midge, wooly bugger, egg, crayfish. Here are a few pics. My father-in-law got his personal best rainbow trout this morning... 18". Crazy button buck white-tail deer tried to climb in my father-in-laws truck when we came out for lunch! He had his front two feet in the cab before I realized it.

Thanks for the report. How were the crowds?

We had us a group trip planned for this weekend for months now, but we all are on the fence whether to go or not.

Light crowds. Saw 3 game wardens (2 fri, 1 sat). They had their hands full around the cold hole and upper evening hole. That's were 90% of the fisherman were. With and without a license. Lol. Plenty of good spots to fly fish.

That deer was someone's pet... came across it last visit in December... kind of a mascot now.

Good to hear they're still biting! Those are some nice ones.

You mainly trying to fish soft water?

I was there last Thursday and Friday and I found fishing to be pretty good. Size 12 Tungsten head "Special" Wooly Bugger with an Olive Soft hackle trailer in size 18 was the ticket for me on both days. The trick is to get away from that raging white water you are talking about. Find eddies and backwashes where the trout can rest, but still take advantage of the food superhighway that is blasting past them. I had particularly good luck in the backwash and flooded out forest immediately to the left of the first bend after cold hole. Also, cold hole and lost creek were fishing well. It also seemed like the high water brought out a lot of larger fish. I caught a surprising number of 16+ inch fish and they were all abnormally fat. Did the hatchery decide to overfeed these fish? They were all shaped like footballs with huge back fat humps.

Also, I was disappointed that I didn't see my deer friend this trip. It's good to know that he is still around.

Nice fish..

looks like a great time. i'm in need of another trip in a bad way

Any tips on how you were fishing with those? It seems like prime water for fishing the swing, and I'm considering taking a trip over before they turn the water off, because I'm sure the crowds will be there.

I was mainly working the seams between the fast roaring water and the slow side eddies. A series of 3 short strips followed by a 5 second drift/sink seemed to work well.