Awesome! It looks like I planned my Thursday and Friday trip perfectly!

It will also give me a chance to test out the new fly I invented: The Pellet (basically a small egg cut to a small cylindrical shape and colored with a brown marker)

Report: sorry for the delayed reports. I have been in broken bow for the last week straight. I have seen the fish dwindle away in some of the pools. 40-50 fish in one pocket. Today there were 3 left. But that was just that pool. The whole park is still loaded from the delayed stocking. They stocked on Tuesday.

Flies I have been using:

Grey RS2's dropped from a Near Deer.
Pink micro egg dropped from Near Deer

Or no dropper when they are feeding heavy and I'll just throw one of the three flies. All year I have been throwing the same 3 flies and averaging 40-50 fish every 3-4 hours. There are some monster still left in the system. My last 4 trips, my clients have broke of the 25 incher in the Evening Hole.

Today was slow is the am and picked up throughout the day. Fished from 8-12 and picked off 51 before packing it up. Lots of 19-21 inch average rainbows in spillway. Landed one that surprised me in less than a ft of water while working a pod of browns. 22 incher was not the log I thought it was.

More pics and vids when I get done with the trout trips next week.

Crazy thing happened today. They stocked about 4 pm. Again! These fish apparently came from Arkansas.

They called it a supplemental stock. They were going upstream to put more in. They had 2 trucks.

I would expect tomorrow to be another 100 fish day easy. My clients have no idea they stocked so they will have a big surprise tomorrow. Guaranteed a bite on the first cast! - and the last.

Well, Friday was just as I planned and more. Got a bite on the first cast. Client missed a bite in all 11 casts and on the 12th, he landed his first one. Then is was game on. He and his buddy landed well over 100 fish easily. 90% came off of olive Near Deers in 4 hours. Others came off of the secret pink egg. Park was pretty busy for a Friday. Lots of good 18-20's roaming around. After the Tourneyment my trips up there are very limited due to the sandbass and hybrid Striper run and the crappie spawn here in DFW. So I'll be guiding the that.. Plus I don't like dealing with the summer crowd.

Holy [censored]. 75 degrees on Saturday and 25 degrees Sunday afternoon. A few of us made the trip from DFW Sunday. We only fished for about 5hours - it got too cold, windy, and rainy. We hit ice, snow, and sleet on the way home. Thank goodness our driver had a 5000 pound automobile.


Bessett managed 'about 25' on steak and eggs setup. He had a nice little run at the lost creek confluence - looked like he pulled in 10-15 there. Nothing of any size unfortunately. I got to about 10 fish and only one pushed 18". Neer deeres (olive) and small eggs bounced on the bottom worked for me. Fingers frozen by 1pm so I gave up. No bugs at all..... just wind. We can still see several 20"+ roaming around, but they are getting harder to fool. I think we only saw about 10 people all day.


Not sure if new fish are coming this week or not.... the schedule got messed up last time. I will be back on the water Friday thru Sunday - probably with the dog.


Gonna go thaw out.....

Admire your fortitude, Jeff. BTW, it's weird, I don't have as much luck with eggs as I do midges. I'm doing something wrong with the eggs, but I don't worry much because I do pretty well with little zebra midges.

JB - I caught a few on zebra midges, but when it gets so cold, my fat fingers cant twist and tie knots on sz22 hooks. I go to eggs and I can still fish anyway. For me, I put a small weight above the egg and let it bounce on the bottom. I also only fish them in spots where the first thing the fish sees is the egg - my indicator is 6-8 feet upstream or closer to my position on most strikes.

Looking like seasonal weather this weekend. Fingers crossed......

Thanks for the tip, Jeff! I haven't thought of trying to hide the indy. I have been trying to pile or tuck cast but can't seem to figure that out.

Report:

Fishing was great. Took repeat adventure clients to Broken Bow this time. Brian and his son Riley had a blast landing fish and watching them jump clear out of the water.



Doubles were very common.



Near Deers in Olive shades were wacking them.

Above is Riley with a huge rainbow trout. Good job man!!!!!

where's the kid's big one? Thanks for letting me tag along to start the day. Thanks as well for giving me the popular run and allowing me to tell the story in the next post......

New fishies on Thursday and Friday. Literally a ton of 11-16" fish all over the river. Crowds were surprisingly lite for Combined TX/OK Spring Break weekend. I certainly have seen much worse. Lots of hikers and families along the river, too.

I spent Friday and Saturday on the river. Sunday was looking to be cold, windy, and wet, so the Caddy headed back to DFW. Friday I mainly targeted big fish. Lots of fresh stockers sometimes got in the way and ate the flies. Still managed a good set of 19-21" fish, with a couple dozen 11-14's. As in recent past, eggs bouncing on the bottom ruled the day. March Brown nymphs (pheasant tail, dark hares ear) caught some good fish too. Fresh stockers were gobbling near deeres and SJ worms as well. Several people I talked to along the river reported small midges and RS2's were hot. As for dries it seemed like March Browns and tiny BWO were working. Eddie reported some nice big fish being caught below his bridge and in Zone II on MB's. The 12 foot no hackle wet bottoms were too heavy for me to venture below the EH Bridge. A canoe hatch broke out about 2pm. My last cast of the day netted a real pretty and fat 17" - I headed to the Wesley to get some needed sleep.

Saturday I met TarponFly and his clients (of the above post) in upper Spillway at 6:30 am. Nothing like a little pre-dawn fishing to start the day! The kid was barely taller than the 3' deep water, but he could cast and he knew his stuff. We all pulled a few out of Honey Hole and headed south. Nothing huge, but nice fresh fish to get the day going. We separated for a little while, I headed to the run below cold hole. I admired the zoo at Cold Hole while having the entire run to myself for a few stretches of time. Lots of 12" fish later (all on eggs and olive ND's), I headed to the bluffs. Lots of families with spin tackle there, so I kept going to upper EH. I managed a few in the fast water around the bend - a first for me. Once in EH area, I met back up with TF and clients. The kid was knockin' em out pretty regularly on Olive ND's. One was a nice 20" that gave him a long fight. I think at one point the gentleman next to us borrowed one of TF's flies and started catching a bunch too. The group marched on downstream to end their guide trip and Carey gave the run to me. I have heard rumors of a real nice fish landed by the kid, but TF will hopefully verify later. Anyway, I pulled in a quick 3-4 fish and then my day got even better.

Another guy and his son (Jack) were lurking behind me watching me net fish after fish. I guess Jack had never managed to catch a trout on a fly yet, so I did my best guide impersonation and rigged him up for LMF stockers. I know its not for everyone, especially purists, but simple 7-8 feet of 4lb fluorocarbon will catch stocked fish. Jack hit the hot spot and 5 minutes later (after a few swings and misses) he had his first trout on the line. Catch, photo, release and back at it. Kid fished while I rigged up dad and briefed him on LMF flies and setups. The three of us and one other older gentleman shared the hole for the next 2 hours, taking turns drifting a popular area and catching dozens of fish. Jack even nailed a real nice 19-20" all on his own. After several more photo ops and fish, the rain drove them off the river. The bite during the rain was insane - any dropper with brown or light brown hackle caught fish. We had a real nice March Brown hatch and (seemingly) spinnerfall. Fish went nuts - I had never seen anything like it on that stretch of river. At one point 4 of us within a 75 foot run all had fish on together. I started trying different sizes and droppers just to evaluate, and they all caught a fish or two. The bite ended and I moved downstream about 2pm. Caught a few in the riffle and moved down to the bottom of the run. EH was pretty busy, but still room to maneuver. For the first time this year, I found a dry fly game of something larger than a sz20 bwo. Large March Browns were hatching after the rain let up. These were size 12-16 and I could actually see them floating downstream. Re-rigged and tossed some big bugs to rising fish at top of EH. I caught a few 12-14's, but I wanted a large riser that kept refusing. Solution: fish it in the film and twitch it. 2 casts was all it took to hook and land a pretty, dark silver rainbow of about 17". Back to MB nymphs after that and managed to net a few more with TF's clients just upstream. A quick phone check determined that a good sized storm was about 1/2 hour away, so I packed it up and got out just in time. Saturday was the 2nd best numbers day I have ever had - somewhere around 50-60 fish. All that and a few good stories on father son teams as well. If either of the Dad's happen to read this - send me a message, I would love to see the pics.

The 3 hour trip home took 4 hours due to flooding rain, storms, wind, and excess mud in a few construction zones. God's light show was pretty awesome.

Sorry to say I probably can't make it back for over a month, but this sure as heck was a great trip to end the winter season on the LMF. Great fishing and good, courteous people. Thanks for letting me share...... pic of 21.5" below.

Hey Jeff and Carey, thank y'all very much for the update and pics. I needed a little fix since we have not gotten to go in awhile and it will still be a few more weeks.

Hey Jeff so if they stocked last Thursday and Friday then do you think the stocking schedule is now moved out a week due and will stay that way because to the delay from the previous stocking? Not sure if I articulated that very well so this might clarify... so based on the three week schedule they were on they should have stocked the week before Carey's Tournament... but since the previous stocking was delayed they are now a week ahead... so the next stocking will most likely be April 3rd or 4th?

Not that I should base my fishing on the stocking schedule, and I don't, but sometimes I really appreciate the new dumb fish.

Thanks!

It appears that this is the new schedule.... April 3, April 24, etc..... I wouldn't place a bet on it, but it seems to be the plan.

The new dumb fish were very gracious this past weekend. I think you could have tied on a piece of bubblegum and caught a few. Lots of full stringers in spillway and lots of happy faces in RedZones.

Report: addition to last.

Dad ( Brian ) catches his PB of 17 inches in spillway creek.



After we left Spillway Creek, we arrived in the Red Zone. It was a bit busy. We started out near the bluffs and then I hear Riley say he has one! 10 mins later he lands a nice 19-20 inchers for a new personal best.



A bit later we move downstream and slip into a spot that I located a big fish in. I pointed it out and said only target that one. A couple of us guys were watching this 10 year old cast like he has been doing this since he was young, lol. The kid is a champ.

A couple mins into it, we see him set the hook. "I got one!" He says.



He relizes what he has hooked and he looks down stream for his dad to let him know he hooked up again. Dad was half way down the Evening Hole. I yelled at his dad and he heard me and started his way towards us.

Meanwhile, Riley is battling the little minnow up and down the pool like a pro.



The little fish decided it wanted to swim around the top of the rapids and I could tell it was thinking about going straight down the rapids to get get away from the little kiddo. And it did! Riley was a pro and kept that fish hooked up the whole time.

The dad finally showed up to watch his son fight an incredible battle with this fish.



Then the time came to net the little fishy.

We had broken 2 personal bests already this day. But, this fish might be the PB that sticks for a long time.




23-24 inch male Rainbow Trout caught by Riley.

Awesome!