The week before last, I made a trip to the Lower Stan. I'm sure you already figured that out if you read my other recent posts. So, here I am, late as usual with the official trip report.
Got to the dam before sunrise. So early in fact, I took a little snooze in the car. Luckily, I awoke before it got too light out. After suiting up, I went straight down to the river and started casting.
The river was up slightly from the last time I was here. Water temp was in the upper 50's. No sign of fish feeding on the top, but I knew they were down there. Just had to find someone willing to take a chance.
As reported in a previous post, I didn't see any salmon. Not that I was fishing for them, but I would like to see a better return. Unfortunately, it didn't look very good.
Had a three fly rig on with various soft hackles up front and a small hair wing steelhead fly as the anchor. Other than a couple of 10 inchers, it was quiet. I wandered down to where the water spills through a tight space and dumped into a slower section. If you are familiar with this area, you know what I'm referring to. For me, this is strictly a hang-down presentation. Let out some line and the current pulls it out the required distance. After letting it fish for a few moments, I'd start stripping it in. At one point, I had a really strong grab. The fish felt very solid and may of been a biggie. Unfortunately, he wouldn't commit and I couldn't get him to come back.
After a couple hours, I headed to the dam. Caught a few 15 inchers right near the dam. It was a little chilly with the water spraying down on me, so I worked myself downstream to find a bunch of fish feeding. A size 20 fly probably would of matched, but I wasn't in the mood to tie one on. Instead I found similar colors in a size 14, 12, and an attractor 10 for the anchor.
I could feel the line being hit as fish were on their way to the surface for the real deal. They completely ignored my offerings! After nearly slipping and falling into a deep slot, I carefully positioned myself for a down and across cast approx 20 feet over the feeding fish. The idea was that bigger fish were positioned a little bit further downstream where the current was slightly slower. After a few casts, I caught a nice 18 inch trout full of anger. Not more than 5 minutes later, I caught another. This went on for a while. These bigger fish were taking my fly after the hang down, while I was teasing the fly or slowly stripping it back. These fish ignored the fact that my flies were much bigger than the real bugs. In fact, the size 10 with a green color body, that in no way looked like the actual hatching bug, was getting the most attention. Matching the hatch is so overrated. :)
At some point I left the dam for two-mile. If my memory serves correctly, it was around 2pm. I caught some really small dinks and one 15 incher, but it was mostly quiet. Walking far down river till the canyon, I decided enough was enough. The water was just high and fast enough I couldn't find good holding water. I headed back and messed around a little in a few areas before closing up shop.
It was a pretty productive day. Caught around a dozen decent sized fish and a whole bunch under 12". A couple of them were bright with virtually no color. Almost certainly from the ocean. While I may not fish the Lower Stan that much anymore, it almost always makes for a productive day.
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