I can say one thing about Otter Creek...I saw a lot of trout! Unfortunately, they were not on the end of my line. I started at about 8:30am with a size 12 Adams with a bh pheasant tail dropper (size 14 or 16, I think) about 14 inches below my dry. 5X leader and tippet. Caught 3 sunfish but no trout although I could see the trout kissing the big rocks and rolling around near the bottom. There was the occasional rise but those could have been panfish. They were definately actively feeding down along the bottom. So, I swtiched to a dual nymph rig with an indicator (bh pheasant tail on top and bh hares ear on bottom.) Fished it shallow at first, maybe about 18-20 inches from indicator to bottom nymph. Again, several sunfish and not a sniff from a trout. I increased the distance between nymphs to about 16 inches, they were only 8-10 inches apart at first, then fished them deeper and in faster water so that the bottom nymph was occasionally tapping rocks on the bottom. Same 'ol story...a few sunnies but no trout...and a few nice wind knots
I even switched my bottom nymph to a midge then a brassie hoping to stir something up. Started getting frustrated so I switched to a black bh wolly bugger with zero success.
As I was having lunch a nice juicy mayfly landed on my arm so I saw this as sign to go to a dry again. Put on a size 12 bwo since that was the closest match I had in my dwindling, poor excuse for a fly box. I spent the next two hours catching more sunnies on the bwo and enjoying a nice cigar. Packed it up at 3pm and headed home.
Talked to a few bait fisherman down the way a bit and they were having a slow day too. I saw some nice smallmouth, some big 'ol drum or carp, and some sizeable (for me) trout. Gotta love a good pair of polarized sunglasses! I think I'll wait until October to head back to the O.C. The gate house guy told me there's been three sizeable stockings since May but I think they're all a bit hook shy this time of year. The hot water and weather ain't helping either.
Question: when I've seen stocker rainbows in Washington and Idaho feeding the way these trout were they're usually feeding on scuds (kind of a small freshwater shrimp.) Is that what they were doing today? I assumed it was nymphs and midges but I obviously don't know what I'm talking about
Crawfish? Whatever it was I didn't have it. Also, I saw schools of fish that looked to me like shad. Bigger than the sunfish, smaller than most of the trout I saw, with a kind of forked tail.
They were feeding in a similar way...kissing the rocks and rooting around on the bottom. Were they shad? Just curious.
All in all, a good day since I wasn't working, stunk like fish, and have some cold beer and another cigar here at home.