Green Below Fontenelle October 22nd, 2016

Date / Time: Saturday, Octber 22nd, 2016 Location: Green Below Fontenelle. Float Slate to Dodge The Characters: KK, Brett Johnston Weather: Sunny, calm 60s. Water Temp: Didn’t measure, guessing high 40s low 50s Water Level: Around 900 cfs Water Clarity/Quality: Clear. Moon Phase: Last Quarter Hatches: Small BWOs, Midges Best Flies: PA, Playboy Conehead,  Gold Body, Red Eye Olive Hackle Bugger, Egg Fishing: Drove up night before solo in the trailer arriving late for weekend trip since I couldn’t pull off a steelhead trip with the limited time. Brett met me the next morning with his boat and we floated from camp to dodge just because it was easy logistics despite plenty of folks around. These days, lot more people fishing up there unfortunately. Wanted to try to find some pig browns near redds and I had a bunch of streamers tied up since I had several previous slay trips fishing the kokanee redds down lower in previous weeks. Threw the yellow olive bugger on the drift and got a nice bow fairly soon in the first curve below the bridge. Found a couple pig browns on a redd just above first island river right. Couldn’t get them interested in anything including Brett throwing the egg. Hooked another good fish on the drop wading outside the micro island river left on the pink and white. Then spotted risers along river right bank and river left so rigged up a dry despite no plans to throw dries. Ended up getting several good bows between us including a ripper 18-19” that I got in the bottom right corner almost into backing. Day was already killer by this point, but continued on and worked the river right sidechannel in seedskadee islands on foot. Brett stuck some on the first drop near some redds. I worked the streamer down through but nada until channel came back into main river when I was almost going to jump back into boat when Brett had floated it down to me. Was working the fly deep around the midriver boulder field and had the heavy power take on the gold bodied olive bugger, fish then went ballistic and skyrocketed several times. Killer, visual battle, big killer heavy fish around 23” and super fat, thick male, awesome day another day maker. Fished the rest of the way out and hit a few more but don’t really remember anything signifcant except there were more risers in the next big eddy down but a  guy on them. The other boats floating we talked to did terrible. We were off with plenty of light so drove down to Golds Bar and wade fished. It was super tough and slow, don’t know if time of day since the last part of our float was somewhat slow or it had been pounded but I only got one smaller bow swinging the pink and egg and streamer fishing down and up through all the good spots and Brett pounding the egg on the river right redd areas. Don’t think he got anything so we called it. It was a killer float and pointless to do the wade at the end but satisfied curiosity.  Great day.