They just stocked the willi this past Thursday. Stopped on the way home from work Thursday and had the river to myself until a familiar face showed up. Brown, after brown, after brown. Fished from Abutment pool to 84 bridge pool. Using Conehead wooly buggers in Olive and brown. Caught over a dozen and missed at least that many. Had a few hours Friday evening so back to the Willi with a friend and once again, river to ourselves - Weird. Talked with a gentlemen who said it was busy during the day. Anyway, started throwing buggers again and picked up a few fish all browns except for one brookie. Headed down river to do some nymphing. I Picked up 3 on stone nymphs, using an indicator. My buddy managed 2. Seeing we are both still real green with all this we missed plenty of fish as well.
Seeing I couldn't get out Saturday or Sunday, I just had to hit the Willi at lunch today. Was setup to throw streamers when I noticed a fish rise. Fish rose again so I said, ah heck why not. Changed spools and tied on a stimulator and after a couple of cast not a smell. Noticed a couple of other fish rise, with the rises being aggressive, i figured something was hatching (stones and something else, couldn't tell but they were small) so I tied on a PT Nymph to my stimulator (first time I ever used a dry fly for a indicator and only about my 10th time nymphing - which I'm working on) and second cast fish on. Typical cookie cutter brown. Fish were still rising so I kept at it and I had hooked another but lost him and I missed one more. The first two hit the PT and it looked like the 3rd was going for the PT as well. All the fish today were close to the bank just inside a seam no cover and direct sun. What a nice lunch trip.
I know they were all just stocked but it was nice to have a few trips with lots of learning opportunities.
Water was crystal clear, normal levels and in the upper 40s. Plenty of stones hatching and the smaller ones might have been BWOs. Real tiny. Guys I talked to where doing well with buggers and hares ear nymphs as well as Princes, PTs and stones.
Jim