Like many, Knuckles and I were chomping at the bit to kick off the 2016 fishing season. I had been monitoring the flow rate on PK Dam for a couple of days and was really hoping that we could get lines wet this past Saturday. January 2, might as well have been Christmas morning; I was wide awake at 5:30 AM and refreshing the BRA website every 5 minutes, waiting to see when they were going to close the gate. At 7:30 AM, the CFS dropped from over 8,000 to 300; by 7:45 AM Knuckles and I were on the road.

We arrived at the usual parking spot around 9:30 AM to find several vehicles already in the parking lot; fortunately for us, they were bait chunkers and perched on the rocks. Actually there were a couple of guys that we saw further down stream that were targeting trout, but they had a mission and were not in the places we wanted to fish for stripers.

As we walked across the little island towards the second hole, things weren't quite right. We were walking through water about 30 feet from the edge to the main body of water. I was thinking the water was still up and that we were going to have a difficult time getting to the channel to fish. In all actuality, the river bed has changed drastically from the recent releases and has made many new sand bars, pools, cuts and even changed the main channel. This is going to take some getting use to for those that remember fishing this area in November and early December.

Knuckles and I got into a couple of nice stripers, but seemed to find many more sand bass on the fly this trip. At least we were catching fish and off to a good start for 2016! Here is a short video: https://youtu.be/gwy4JqzMQvE





Tight lines and wish everyone a prosperous 2016 fishing season!
FishyB

Good day fishing! Thanks for sharing the pics and video!

Thanks for the info. I'm heading there tomorrow with a first timer, and I haven't fished that area in a month or so. I'm looking forward to getting him on some fish.

Looks like y'all had a good day. We went out yesterday to start the New Year off right! The recent release has definitely moved the river around. We caught plenty of angry, healthy striper. Was a great day on the water! Tight lines Gents and I hope 2016 brings you much success on the water!

Nice job GoodOleG. One of these days we will need to meet up and fish.

I have added a write up to the BassKnucklesFishing blog about the weekend and also a recap of 2015, in case anyone is interested.

Check out: https://bassknucklesfishing.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/2015-and-beyond-plus-fishing/

Congrats .. I was watching the water levels as well, but I messed my back up Friday cleaning some stuff around the house and complained a little to much to the wife so she would have killed me if I went out Sat or Sun .. I almost told her standing in the cold water would be good for my back .. haha

-rob

Solid post. Good job.

Do you have to paddle up from hey 16 to get that close to the dam? Last time I was out there I didn't see a way to get down into the water by the dam, but the water levels were pretty deep when I was there.

Jon

Jon, we didn't kayak this trip. You would have to put in at the Hwy 16 bridge and paddle upstream to fish the area that we were fishing. The water was moving approximately 300 CFS; many guys here would tell you that it's easy or doable, personally it would be a lot of work and you would spend a lot of time positioning yourself and not fishing, lol.

FishyB

AWESOME! How are you liking the new Lamson reel?

Yeah 300 cfs would be a little too much for me in my SUP!

Winchester44, we love the Lamson Remix reels and the TFO Professional II rods. Knuckles is throwing the 8 wt and I have a 9 wt; Cabela's only had one of each and Knuckles wanted the 8 wt. I would highly recommend the Lamson Remix and TFO combination!

FishyB

Great report as usual! Keep those reports and videos coming,
See you on the water!

Thank you Rick!

I appreciate the affirmation, wasn't sure if folks were getting tired of the posts, links, videos, etc....

Definitely need to go fishing soon!

FishyB

Brent, well done you caught those fish on my birthday and just for that reason as we were having a family get together to celebrate is why I could not go fishing. Nice report and video. I have "discoverd" Skagit casting and want to try it out there at PK dam, I went to Denison Dam on Monday to experiment and learnt a few things but did not hook into a fish.