Strawberry Below Starvation 8-3-2013

Date / Time: 8/3/2013 Location: Strawberry below starvation The Characters: Kory, Tom Rosenbauer Weather: Mostly sunny and hot. Water Temp: Cooler, mid 50s guess. Water Level: Medium, excellent fishing flow around 306 cfs. release from Starvation. Water Clarity/Quality: Mostly clear, slight color coming through with moss. Moon Phase: 4 days before new. Bugs: Micro midges, PMDs, Sallies, Caddis. Fishing:  Tom Rosenbauer out for OR show and had free day so we headed here since he was already going to Falcon’s Ledge. When we got there around 8am started below dam and fish were chowing nymphs in first big pool. Only thing coming off was micro midges. Threw the tiny zebra camel and instantly hooked and landed a couple nice fish. That spooked the rest so we headed down. After that, fish were selective. Tried various droppers on some spotted fish but largely nada. Threw the indicator on and went a bit deeper since I wasn’t seeing that many fish and immediately hooked a couple on bigger zebra and smaller zebra. Moved down and spotted a nice group of fish in the shallows after spooking a ton in the shallows looking to fish deeper with the current rig I had on like an idiot. Watched them for a minute and decided to ditch the indicator and go back to PA and micro zebra. As I was breaking down, saw one of the biggest fish rise. Didn’t tie on dropper, put the PA over him he ate it instantly and I missed him. After that, figured fish would be up good and spotted several in next riffle. Spooked all them and went back to upper group and sure enough they were up. PMDs were going pretty good by then. Fish in tail of pool were munching nymphs in surface film but I couldn’t get them to eat anything. Pig was rising heavy above and eventually put the floating nymph on him and he ate instantly, didn’t run much, bulldog fight and taped 23 inch with giant hookjaw. After that, worked down and looked for risers and ended up finding several more. Traded off with Tom hooked several on various patterns. Floating PMD being one of the better. Eventually saw a pig on top of S curves and threw rusty and got him immediately and lost him. Worked down and fish were up like crazy in heavy seams of S curves. Ended up banging a bunch of super nice fish on the rusty. Went down to grab Tom since I had banged so many and I got one more below looking for Tom against a log. Eventually took Tom back to this spot and he got one on a dun. They were still going through there, I made a few casts and headed home around 5pm. Fish were still up and evening was probably awesome. Killer day.