Mr. CR Brown says "not today"

[FlyLie]

Took the spinning rod and a few rooster tails down to the Wolf Creek tailwaters this afternoon around 5:00 pm. Had planned on taking the fly rod, but that's another story.

After about 15 minutes with nothing, I noticed a school of about 5 large fish stacked up behind a small log jam at the mouth of a creek. After watching them a while, I'm sure at least 2 of them were browns. Not sure about the others, rainbow or brown. Anyway, I judged all of them to be at least "slot fish" or maybe slightly over 20 inches.

So now I'm sight fishing. First I offer them a "white" rooster tail. Try as I might, with different presentations, they just weren't interested. Walked away and came back to same location about 30 minutes later and offered them a "Green" rooster tail. Same results...nothing. Dang, that's flustrating when you can see fish like that and they have no interest in your offerings....but rooster tails were the only lures I had with me.

I watched them a while longer, and never did see them rise or feed, at least not that I could see. Same on the river as a whole, no fish rising to speak of. Spoke with another fisherman earlier who reported the trout were rising all over the river yesterday afternoon. Wonder why the difference today and why the browns would't go for the rooster tail?

Only difference between the two days that I can identify is water level and flow. Yesterday and this morning, the flow was 2,010 cu/ft/sec and the river was at 545 feet. Then today at 1:00 PM, they increased the flow to 3,480 cu/ft/sec and by 6:00 pm the level was up to 547 feet and rising.

Anyone have any thoughts.....or is this just fishing?

[troutcrazy]

Well you know it's not weather related becasue the pressure and the precip has been about the same all week. That slight rise in the river could have caused them to shut down, but honestly it was probably just fishing.

Normally from 5 till dark you can find the fish hitting the top all the time and the bite is really on so it's surprising you didn't have any hits.

If in fact those fish were bigger (20 in) fish and they were browns they may have been looking for slower bait than a rooster tail. I know when I throw behind a lay down or a boulder I throw something that will present low and slow, but when all you have are roosters then you use what you brought. I know the frustration of seeing them, but they just won't take it. Better luck next time.