07/01/12 Blue River Below Green Mountain

07/01/12
Blue River Below Green Mountain
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Flows 498

The old tenants at our rental property moved out, so I had to head up and take pictures of the condition of the house.  Of course I was going to go do some fishing as well!

The private access on the Blue was busy with campers for the weekend.  All 3 camping areas were taken by familes but none of them were fishing.

I headed out and headed north to fish the far reach of the private stretch and managed to hook into a few fish, but lose them in the faster water.  I ended up catching a nice bow right at the end of the private stretch that took me for a run downstream.

Not huge, but it certainly was a fun fight.

This guy took a copper john.

As I made my way back upstream, I continued to fish and kept getting bites, but either the fish would spit the hook, or I was too slow on my hookset.  I guess it's just one of those days...

At the bend, I managed to hook up with another fish that hook a rubber legged copper john/prince that took me into my backing!  Now that was a fun fight.  After 2 runs, I was finally able to wrangle him into the shallow riffles and netted him.

It's good to see that there's still lots of big healthy fish in this stretch.  They certainly are more spaced out at these higher flows, but this stretch is still easily fishable and wadeable at 500.

Back at the car, I decided to get 1 more drift at the cut bank and was rewarded with a nice brownie.  He took a copper john as well.

A fat little guy that obviously has been eating well.

Fishing has been fair down here.  For those of you who might be trying to fish below the dam, stick to stonefly patterns.  What works here, will work down there as well. 

The green drakes haven't really started coming up yet.  But try a green drake nymph.  And if you are floating the canyon, a green drake nymph would always be on the end of my line.  It's getting close...any day now and we should see a hatch.