Couple Trout Questions

[gil1]

Although we mostly fly fished for 3 days, we floated high water with conventional tackle two straight afternoons. The first day, we caught a bunch of fish floating including my friend's brown he caught on a Berley Gulp. I cut off his head in the photo just because I doubt he'd want to be a movie star. The next day, the water was kind of muddy, and nobody even got a bite on the float trip.

1. Does anybody know of a lure or tactic that works well in muddy water, or should we have just given it up because of the Yoohoo stain?

2. Anybody have any idea how long this brown would be? We wanted to get it back in the water pretty quickly, so we didn't measure it. Why do trout look so much smaller in pictures?

 

[B.D.]

It's virtually impossible to guess length from a picture because the scale can be so deceiving. I would guess that brown at around 24 inches, give or take.

For muddy water, big black wooly buggers or jerkbaits fished tight to the bank, depending on whehter you're using fly tackle or gear. If you're not opposed to using live bait, use a worm threader to thread a big canadian nightcrawler on your line and let it bump down the bottom in the current. Quite effective but I wouldn't do it unless I was keeping fish, because you will gut hook some. I don't enjoy fishing muddy water at all, and it's a low numbers game, but it does occasionally make the bigger trout brave.

A bigger question would be, why would the Caney be yoohoo stained right now? It's not like we've gotten a lot of rain. We need to stay on the Corps about silt control on their repair project - it's got to be hell on the brookies.

bd

 

[gil1]

Funny, I guessed it at 24, too. As Tubbs always reminds us, most fly fishermen (especially me) have no business commenting on big fish, so I deferred my opinion.

I was on the South Holston, and it rained upstream the prior night.

I don't know how the Corps would go about mitigating silt. I figured it was just the cost of doing business.

 

[B.D.]

Funny, I guessed it at 24, too. As Tubbs always reminds us, most fly fishermen (especially me) have no business commenting on big fish, so I deferred my opinion.

It's settled: 24 it is!

Tubbs hasn't been around today. I hope we haven't run him off. I've got to start kissing up to him - it's going to be another month before I can cast a flyrod OR use my boat alone, and I honestly don't think I can stand being off the water much longer. I might need him to take me spin fishing.

I don't know how the Corps would go about mitigating silt.

Mostly silt fences and other barriers to impede construction runoff from flowing into the river - slow the water down to let the silt settle out and make the water soak into the dirt instead of running off directly into the stream. It won't stop all the silt in a frog strangling downpour but you can stop a good deal of it from running off in the afternoon showers we get this time of year.

bd

 

[Coach]

Figure 4 inches on your friends four fingers so probably is about 24". I don't fish where you fish, but with standard spinning gear I use a copper Super Duper with a little red on it's head in cloudy or clear water and I am usually successful. Nice fish

 

[trealtree]

22 3/4 nice fish

 

[bigluresonly]

Gil, I have noticed that more flash in muddy water has worked better for me over the last weekend. I did best with a chrome lure. I ran up to the dam on the CF last week and it was poor vis all the way even though there had'nt been much rain. The water was coming out of the gens stained. I don't know why but I thought it might be that pumping so much water for so long might have stirred the lake a bit. Btw, heck of a fish, congrats!!