Sunday, July 21, 2013

Dog Days

This afternoon I took a quick trip down to the South Branch, my first since coming back from my trip to Provo.  I was armed with a thermometer, having heard the horror stories of poached trout from others, and was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the river despite the warm water.  I even observed a 4-inch wild brown sipping something tiny from the surface from a deep lie behind a midstream rock.


The water level and flow was fairly normal for midsummer in these parts, offering plenty of deep holes and runs for stressed trout to hide from predators out of the bright sun.  The water temperature was much too warm for fishing at 77 degrees, but as long as the flows remain where they are at the trout should be fine if left alone.  Weaker fish may have perished this past week, but that is simply nature protecting the stronger fish by making more room and food available to them.

As long as we get regular rains and things cool down as predicted, we should be in good shape when the water temps move down to the mid 60's for a few days in a row.  As you can see above, the river looks great, the canopy is thick and green from all the recent rains and now all we need is a cool down.

No fishing for now, but it sure is nice to sit by the river and take in the sights, sounds and smells of my favorite environment - a trout stream.     

3 comments:

Brk Trt said...

I have not fished a small stream in weeks. The Farmington is been OK

jaybird said...

it never fails when ever I need to travel more than an hour and a half to go fishing gasoline prices spike . It also never fails i happily pay those greedy monsters just to catch big healthy trout.

Mr. Q said...

No fishing? I caught a 8 pound catfish in the big D at Finesville yesterday.....;)