Just some weeks in the past, I made a six-hour drive to Western Pennsylvania to focus on brown trout on a really well-known tailwater. The day earlier than I departed, in fact, an enormous line of storms swept via dumping buckets of rain throughout your complete state. Nearly each river I drove over and alongside was cresting its banks and chocolate brown. The excellent news was that as a result of we had been fishing a tailwater with flows managed by a dam, our river wouldn’t be chocolatey. However to maintain the reservoir in examine, the movement was bumped in a single day from a meager 3,000 cubic ft per second to a raging 9,000 cubic ft per second. This offered a giant drawback.
I’m certain a lot of you may have felt this ache. It’s opening day of the season, or your annual trout journey with the boys, or only a uncommon day without work mid-week, however in a flash your native river will get blown out. Your fantasy of plucking trout on nymphs behind your favourite rock evaporates if you notice wading over to it might be far too harmful, if not inconceivable.
Excessive water occasions are, nevertheless, a blessing and a curse within the trout recreation. The trick to utilizing them to your benefit is knowing what the fish will do and the way they’ll behave in the course of the three levels of a spike.
The Preliminary Bump
Widespread considering is that when a river swells shortly, the trout will search shelter out of the elevated present and transfer to the comfortable edges of the flooded banks. That’s not incorrect, however the actuality is that they gained’t go there instantly after a giant bump. Whether or not it’s a free stone stream, a tailwater, or a limestone river, the fish will stay proper the place you left them when the water circumstances had been higher.
This, in fact, doesn’t make catching them any simpler. Now, the mid-river eddy behind that rock the place you hit them two days in the past is deeper, the present round it’s swifter, and the water is probably going stained if not filthy. Presenting to these fish is now a lot trickier, however even should you regulate your method, you’re possible going to need to bounce your providing proper off their noses to get them to eat. The sport turns into extra a legislation of averages — beat the water lengthy sufficient, make sufficient casts, and ultimately you would possibly wind up in entrance of a snout, however don’t anticipate them to maneuver or chase.
The larger lesson right here, although, is that trout don’t like sudden change. They hunker down and it takes time for them to reorganize, reposition, and get snug within the larger flows. Consuming proper after an enormous bump isn’t often a precedence, so the underside line is that fishing instantly following a sudden spike isn’t often very enjoyable or productive. A day or two after that spike, nevertheless, it’s a distinct story.
The Preliminary Drop
Primarily based on observations I’ve made whereas fishing native rivers beneath each situation conceivable, I feel fish ultimately transfer due to starvation.
A trout might have been completely snug in its mid-river lane, gobbling nymphs and baitfish as they handed by on the excellent velocity. However the excessive movement has modified all that, and the fish know that if the water’s not dropping, they should transfer to seek out meals.
Enter the traditional “pushed to the banks” state of affairs. Any critical trout angler will let you know that when the fish slide into the comfortable, swollen banks, it may create among the most magical fishing you’ll ever expertise. The fish change into predictable, and you’ll spend your whole day specializing in calm financial institution edges and completely hammering. Trout know that these comfortable edges are the place baitfish will go to keep away from the present. Likewise, it is going to be simpler to seek out terrestrial bugs, frogs, and even drowned mice pushed to those comfortable edges by the elevated present. However to hit the candy spot you’ve obtained to get your timing down.
When a significant rain occasion blows up your river, monitoring on-line movement gauges is your ticket to the chunk window. Give the river a day or so to start out dropping and pay shut consideration to what number of CFS per day it’s falling. If the movement price isn’t altering in any respect, that’s okay, too, however you continue to want to present the water a while to clear a bit and for the fish to get hungry and transfer.
The Fall-Out
Throughout that journey to Western Pennsylvania, my buddy and I caught 4 trout in two days. Our success was merely a product of beating the runs the place he had them at decrease water. We forged time and again with streamers and jerkbaits till we pulled a bait instantly in entrance of a face.
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Regardless of the river having that delicate, minty inexperienced stain many trout anglers love, not as soon as did a fish arc as much as the floor to grab a lure, run up on one boat aspect, or roll round one and miss. They had been merely glued in place. Inside three days, although, in poured photographs of my buddy’s success in the identical movement however in areas the place we felt they need to have been however hadn’t but arrived. So, as soon as the trout settle into a brand new routine, how lengthy does it final?
No matter water top, trout (and all moving-water fish, for that matter) crave stability. Fishing will all the time be extra productive throughout lengthy spans of constant circumstances. Within the case of a tailwater the place flows are managed by the hand of man, it’s simpler to trace and keep the circumstances. However let’s say you’re hammering alongside the banks of your native stream following a high-water occasion.
In my expertise, readability now turns into a key consider how lengthy fish will keep of their high-water haunts. Naturally, a fast drop in movement will knock them off the banks and again to mid-river lairs, however stained or coloured water performs as a lot of a task in creating juicy high-water fishing as top.
If baitfish are nonetheless extra snug in comfortable financial institution edges, and in the event that they nonetheless really feel camouflaged, it’s possible the trout will nonetheless hunt these areas, too. That’s why any time the water is stained, it’s price fishing shut earlier than fishing far. By no means rush to a mid-river run if the water has coloration, as a result of till it clears utterly, there’s a great probability you’ll discover fish near the financial institution or in shallower areas that don’t often maintain them beneath clear circumstances.