by Jimbo Roberts » March 30th, 2013, 9:13 pm
Down here on the Guadalupe, we've had some really tough fishing the last 2 months.
Everyone has been talking about it. What are they doing? What are they eating? When are they eating? Did they go noctural?
The flows have dropped to 55cfs again after a little 2 week water rise to 600cfs and then back down. The water has been almost a glacial powder green, not really muddy or stained, but a milky light green. Visibility of about 12". This is not normal. Our water is usually very clear at least 3 feet visibility or more. And these fish just are not biting, We have good temperatures, good dissolved O2, good bug activity, but the number of strikes are way down from normal and for a long time. Yet the fish caught are still healthy, bright, and fat.
I mean right in the middle of a BWO hatch and they are no where to be seen, no rises, no porpoising, noone catching anything.
I going through different flys, different presentations, and I can't get a bite. I'm standing in waist deep water with a deep channel in front of me and a shallow gravel bar at my back. No fish are rising to the passing parade of little sailboats. What's wrong with them?
There I am all puzzled? Several of my friends around me just as mystified? As I change my fly once again, a Rainbow easily 24", maybe bigger, comes up to the surface, no more than a foot away from my torso. He pokes his head through the surface, all casual, almost in slow motion, as if just to look at what is there in the middle of his river. He passes by, then swings around, and comes in for another pass. Again surfacing right next to me swimming real slow. If I had my net in hand it would have been easy to scoop him up. And it was a him, his bulbous kype easily distinguishable.
And I'm thinking in my head "What the F@< & !!!!" "Why can't I catch that ONE?"
I turn to my friends and scream... "Did you see that?" They all bust out in laughter.... They know exactly how I feel. We are all in it together. Trying to get these fish with a brain the size of a pea, to bite on our imitations of the naturals, which have worked time and time again, but not now, not here, not today.
Jimbo