With water levels on the Spokane river being less than optimal, and wanting to fish some moving water, I decided to make a quick trip after work to fish the Little Spokane River. For this time of year, the flows on this little stream are down quite a bit, which allows for earlier than usual good fishing. The section I fished just re-opened a week ago and the fish were (to put it mildly) very "eager and willing" to take a fly. After having worked so hard to catch fish on the spring creeks of Wisconsin, the "no brainer" fishing on this evening was nice change of pace from the demanding, technical fishing I experienced a week earlier.
Not that it mattered to the fish much, but there was a hatch going on almost the entire time I was on the river (4-7pm). When I first arrived on the water, there was a significant midge hatch (small 22s or 24s) coming off along with a smattering of baetis mayflies (mostly sz 18) that likely were remants from a hatch which began earlier in the afternoon. I also noticed what appeared to be another type of mayfly different in color and size from the grey-olive bodied beatis, although it could I suppose simply have been a different beatis species. There are a number of black clinger nymphs in the river in addition to the the swimmer mayfly nymphs I suspect are beatis. A couple of different Caddis species also started showing up in vast number around 5-5:30, but judging from their behavior, it would appear that these caddis had hatched earlier and were females coming back to the water to lay their eggs. By 6 pm, there were insects flying about everywhere, but I did not see a single riseform to indicate the fish were feeding on or near the surface. As such, I did not spend too much time trying to identify the insects to species, but knowing generally what was presently available above the surface gave me a good indication of what to fish subsurface (although on this particular evening I am not sure it really mattered what I fished).
Attractor nymphs usually work well on this stream so I tied on a purple variation of the prince nymph (sz 14) with a 16 tan caddis larvae imitation as the trailer fly. I fished a variety of water types, but the shallower riffles (1-3 ft in depth) were by far the most productive for trout with the slower, deeper areas being more productive for whitefish (once I hook 2-3 whitefish in an area, I move on as they tend to school up). The "challenge" to fishing this stream this time of the year usually is not so much pattern as it is location. Reading the water (which at present levels is not difficult) was the most critical factor as if I was able to hook fish in pretty much every likely looking spot. In fact, I never made a fly change all evening, but simply moved from spot to spot after I felt like I had thoroughly fished one location. The fish in this stream generally run small (6-8 inches), but there are enough 10-12 inchers and occasional fish 14-18" to make things interesting (I have heard of and seen fish 20+ inches coming from this stream but they I believe are very rare). The fishing was terrific for mostly rainbows between 6-12 inches with the highlight being a 16 inch bow caught just before I left. I also caught a handful of whitefish and one large (4-5 lb) sucker. Most fish (2/3rds of them) took the caddis larvae imitation while the rest took the purple prince pattern I was fishing.
I also fished Brown's lake yesterday with similar results. The most productive area of the lake was the shallower end near the mouth of the inlet stream that dumps into the lake. The fishing was too easy if one can say such a thing. Fishing a sz 10 Jim Beam with a sz 16 olive chironomid beneath it in about 5 ft of water, I was getting a hit or hooking up on almost every cast for a couple of hours. The only problem was the fish landed were all between 8-12 inches, and having caught some larger fish in other parts of the lake earlier, I was dissapointed not to encounter any of these larger fish on this end of the lake. I did well fishing chironomids and bloodworms in less than 10 ft of water, and with water clarity being so good, did see a number of fish in the 18-20 inch range (I did catch one rainbow that was 18 inches) swimming about at those depths, but they were far and few between. Most guys fishing it were concentrating along the shorelines as opposed to fishing in the deeper water.
With water levels on the Spokane river being less than optimal, and wanting to fish some moving water, I decided to make a quick trip after work to fish the Little Spokane River. For this time of year, the flows on this little stream are down quite a bit, which allows for earlier than usual good fishing. The section I fished just re-opened a week ago and the fish were (to put it mildly) very "eager and willing" to take a fly. After having worked so hard to catch fish on the spring creeks of Wisconsin, the "no brainer" fishing on this evening was nice change of pace from the demanding, technical fishing I experienced a week earlier.
Not that it mattered to the fish much, but there was a complex hatch going on almost the entire time I was on the river (4-7pm). When I first arrived on the water, there was a significant midge hatch (small 22s or 24s) coming off along with a smattering of baetis mayflies (16-18) and what appeared to be another mayfly began with small midges and a few beatis, progressed to include a couple different species of caddis (although I am not sure that the caddis we, a handful of
