Myron and the Rapid

On Jul 20, 8:46 am, riverman wrote:

I was getting strikes
on almost every cast, and eventually started 'blind setting'...a sort
of bizarre method where I just randomly set the hook at a point in the
river, cast back over the same line and set the hook a foot farther
downstream, recast and drift, setting the hook another foot farther
downstream. I have decided (based on getting all sorts of hookups with
this method), that I am getting LOTS of takes without feeling them
with each drift, and by blind setting, I actually increase the odds of
hooking up.

Curious, did you have many foul hooked fish or fish hooked outside the
mouth? On rivers with lots of fish in them, doing the above would, in
my experience, result in lot's of foul hooks. Even without "blind
setting", dead drift nymphing (and other subsurface techniques)
through runs with reasonably dense fish populations results in not-so-
rare foul hookups. The main legal method for catching sockeye in
Alaska is to "snag" them in or near the mouth with a fly.

I foul hooked one 13" brown in 11-mile canyon in Colorado back in
June, out of about 6-7 hours of nymph fishing. Another time I was
streamer fishing on the San Juan in Texas hole right at sundown,
letting the streamer swing and then _slowly_ bringing it back up along
the current's edge. Willi and I think Danl were there. I tail hooked
two browns, both nice size, both on the very slow up current retrieve.
I imagine that either the fish felt the line hit their side/back/belly
and "darted" away, catching the line/fly with their tail, or they
purposely whacked the fly with their tail to stun it? see if it was
alive? get rid of it?

Jon.

On Jul 22, 1:25*pm, wrote:
On Jul 20, 8:46 am, riverman wrote:

I was getting strikes
on almost every cast, and eventually started 'blind setting'...a sort
of bizarre method where I just randomly set the hook at a point in the
river, cast back over the same line and set the hook a foot farther
downstream, recast and drift, setting the hook another foot farther
downstream. I have decided (based on getting all sorts of hookups with
this method), that I am getting LOTS of takes without feeling them
with each drift, and by blind setting, I actually increase the odds of
hooking up.

Curious, did you have many foul hooked fish or fish hooked outside the
mouth? On rivers with lots of fish in them, doing the above would, in
my experience, result in lot's of foul hooks. Even without "blind
setting", dead drift nymphing (and other subsurface techniques)
through runs with reasonably dense fish populations results in not-so-
rare foul hookups. The main legal method for catching sockeye in
Alaska is to "snag" them in or near the mouth with a fly.

I foul hooked one 13" brown in 11-mile canyon in Colorado back in
June, out of about 6-7 hours of nymph fishing. Another time I was
streamer fishing on the San Juan in Texas hole right at sundown,
letting the streamer swing and then _slowly_ bringing it back up along
the current's edge. Willi and I think Danl were there. I tail hooked
two browns, both nice size, both on the very slow up current retrieve.
I imagine that either the fish felt the line hit their side/back/belly
and "darted" away, catching the line/fly with their tail, or they
purposely whacked the fly with their tail to stun it? see if it was
alive? get rid of it?

Jon.

No foul hooks at all, Jon. But we were using #20 and #22 flies mostly,
so I sort of wonder if they could even foul hook, rather than skip off
the fish. But almost every one of my catches was in the fishes tongue
rather than the cheek or lip, which was new to me.

On this river, at least, I suspect I was getting 5 or 8 gentle takes
per drift, and not really feeling them. Or else the fish were watching
the nymph drift by, and hitting it when it suddenly moved. One of my
catches was just as I was retrieving to recast (not really a cast, as
I was nymphing...sort of a flip back upstream) and the fish leapt
right out of the water and seized the nymph as it broke the surface.

--riverman

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:25:53 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Curious, did you have many foul hooked fish or fish hooked outside the
mouth? On rivers with lots of fish in them, doing the above would, in
my experience, result in lot's of foul hooks. Even without "blind
setting", dead drift nymphing (and other subsurface techniques)
through runs with reasonably dense fish populations results in not-so-
rare foul hookups. The main legal method for catching sockeye in
Alaska is to "snag" them in or near the mouth with a fly.

Hi, Jon. I get more foul hook-ups on the Rapid than anywhere else. I
think it is because there are so many fish. When the leader touches
one, I set the hook snagging it. *OR*, I'm just a little too slow in
setting the hook on a strike. I know for every fish I have taken on a
dry I have missed twice as many rises. A late hook set on a rise can
cause a foul hook-up.

There is nothing quite like a 20 inch brook trout or landlocked salmon
that is foul hooked.

Dave

Thanks for the great post.

Every year I take my family to Kezar Lake in Maine for a week in early
August. Since we're about an hour or so south of the Rapid, I used to
head over to fish it. I stopped making the trek a few years ago (it is a
trek, 10 miles of logging roads, then the mile hike) because of warm
water and crumby fishing. Your post has convinced me to try again. I
still think early June is the best but you sound like you had a great
day.

Thanks a bunch. I'll post how it goes.

Cheers!


--
McRiffle
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On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:21:16 -0400, McRiffle
wrote:

I
still think early June is the best but you sound like you had a great
day.

Whoooooa. Hold on. Early June IS the best time to fish the river.
Myron could only make it on the dates we went, and fishing was good
ONLY because we had such a very cold spring with lots of snow and cold
rain. Normally the Rapid shuts down before mid-July and doesn't begin
to pick up again until late August. September is pretty good fishing
because the days are cool and the evenings cold.

Right now, I expect the Rapid is fishing very poorly, with only the
dam pool producing any fish. The lake is still full (or near to it),
so September of this year should be very good.

Dave