Recommendations for LO?

[John Harper]

It looks like I can get away on 4/6 for a few days. Have not fished the LO since I began flyfishing a few years back. I guess caddis patterns are suggested at the moment. Any tips would be appreciated and kept confidential.

Looking to camp at PVR if anyone is going to be up there that week. What's up with raccoons and minks?

Thanks,

John

[Wildman]

Have a great time. Stop in and see David to get dialed in at the shop. He can share the flies that are working right now. Raccoons and minks are not really a factor if you keep a clean camp. If you don't, they will make a mess.

[midger]

Lots of different flies work there and the caddis should be coming off pretty good by then. I've found over the years that you can't go wrong with size 18-22 Silver bead black zebra midge. If I could only use one pattern, that would be the one.

[WanderingBlues]

Don't leave anything out food wise. The raccoons are big, bold, smart, and ornery. And zebra midges in varying sizes in black, rootbeer, and red.

[acorad]

John I posted this in another forum about my first trip to the LO a few weeks ago, hope it helps!:

We parked at a spot on the river that they had had good luck on in the past and they suggested I rig up with up with the Elk Hair Caddis and one of Ryan's caddis emergers as the dropper, while they both rigged up multiple rods with nymphs, streamers and dries.

Rob took me to a nice hole where he showed me how to fish from the insides of the bends, do lob/roll casts with multiple flies and a thingamabober, and use big mends to keep the line upstream of the indicator, and he hooked up pretty much immediately.

Then I spent some time with his rod and got some encouraging hits but no takes.

Then we headed up river to find Ryan, skirting the herds of cows, and Ryan had me use his rod with nymphs and thingabobber that he had already taken several browns on, and I did have some more hits and one solid take that ended up LDRing after 10-20 seconds of tug.

Then I spent some time with my dry caddis/caddis emerger combo on the same stretch. I had no luck but it was good casting/mending practice.

I really had no complaints, it was perfect weather, about 70F, not a cloud in the sky, the mountains were covered in snow, and I was happy just to be there!

Then we all split up, and I headed downstream. Thank god for the cows. They have trampled many paths through the otherwise impenetrable tules, and I followed one these paths to the water.

As there were no fish rising, I pinched a couple split shots on my tippet and fished the caddis/caddis emerger combo sort of Czech nymph style. The flies look buggy, right? Why wouldn't a trout want them deep? And within a few casts I got my first LO brown!

Stoked, I kept fishing the dry flies deep, and brought 2 more to the net in that small stretch. This was one of them (right click, view image, to see full photo):

Then I heard a greeting from right behind me, and turned around to find a DFG warden who checked my license and my barbs. I was in compliance, but, as I found out later, Ryan had forgotten to put his license in his wallet and got a "fix-it" type ticket. He quickly drove into Bishop, got a duplicate, and was back on the water w/in an hour or so.

After the warden left, I headed back upstream to Rob and we noticed a small BWO hatch going off. As there were no rises where Rob was I headed upstream about 50 yards where I saw noses! I slipped into the water, took the split shot off my tippet, Ginked up the caddis/caddis emerger combo, and basically without having to move my feet I got several dozen hits, 3-4 solid LDR's and 6 beautiful browns to net before the hatch ended.

When the hatch ended I put the split shot back on my tippet and recast to my previous take spots, but there was no more action.

It was about mid-afternoon by this time so I wandered back downstream toward my car, hitting various pools and runs on the way and I found a deep whirlpool type hole that looked fishy but also difficult due to the swirling currents, so I thought "why not strip a streamer?"

But when I opened my fly box the first thing I saw was a San Juan Worm that had never been wet, so I tied it on instead. Within a few seconds of it hitting the water I was onto my biggest fish of the day! He ended up burying himself in some tules downstream, so I had to hop into the chest high water and head downstream to pull him out. He was a beauty, solid 13".

[fflutterffly]

When I was there around the 18th I hammered on small (18-20) black wet flies... for that matter emergers like RS2 WD40 did great. When I seined the water I found a lot...lots of free living caddis size 14. Mostly understanding the depth of the water and your placement of lies might increase your take ratio. I've been keeping my double rigging about 18" apart, keeping that top emerger just under the surface.
Greatest part of the river is how easily it is to wade.

[fly addict]

Zee once said to me, “The Lower Owens is the easiest river to catch fish, if you’re not catching them your fly isn’t in the water”. From all the recommendations, a lot of different flies seem to catch fish for a lot of different people. It doesn’t really matter what you use within reason, just get it to drift naturally near the bottom and you should get fish!

[John Harper]

Thanks for all the tips, everyone. I need to go through my gear and see what flies I have already, sounds like a lot of variety works.

John

[stimbo]

John, Keep it as simple as you can. Small, dark midges and bwo's have been working great. The weather has turned chilly and blustery again, so the caddis are laying low, for now. Have fun. Jim

[John Harper]

John, Keep it as simple as you can. Small, dark midges and bwo's have been working great. The weather has turned chilly and blustery again, so the caddis are laying low, for now. Have fun. Jim

I try to be as minimal as possible. Thanks for all the encouragement.

John

[midger]

I only used 4 different patterns today. All caught fish as long as you were right on the bottom. No appreciable hatch today and only saw two fish rise all day long, but fishing was consistently good from 9:15 until 2:30 when we packed it in