Workin' for the fish

The St Joe River was at 4700cfs when I checked at 6.00am on 07.05.11. Eric Platt and I were going to the river today to fish.
Conventional wisdom is that the optimum flows for fishing the St Joe are BELOW 3000cfs, but we have never been accused of using anything near conventional wisdom! We arrived at the first run and after gearing up hit the water about 10.00am perfect Cutthroat time.

I had some intel about a Cranefly Larvae fly pattern so I tied one of these monsters. When we got to the river all of the normal spots to fish were under water. At this level this was really a different river than I have fished before. We spent some time fishing some "soft" spots along the bank and I hooked and landed a nice 15" Westslope. Pretty fish, I love catching these native fish. We moved on trying to find a spot that you could access the river, actually wade, and had the characteristics that we thought should be holding fish. We stopped at a spot were a good sized feeder creek was coming in and Eric landed a few fish there on a mayfly nymph. I had a couple of splashy takes on an adult Golden Stone, but no hook-ups. Eric switched to an Adams Parachute and started consistently hooking fish right on the edge of the riffle water. I watched as he put cast after cast into the riffle with little 4-5' drifts and hooked fish after fish.

We thought we had it figured out and went to the next spot and got blanked. About 5pm there was a big May fly hatch and the size 16 parachute Adams was the match. We found one more run to fish but it was a challenge to get to. Eric waded across a channel to get to an island but I decided not to try it, I did not want to swim now. I bush wacked through the brush and shrubs and ended up at the place where the water joined back together at the lower end of the island.
That tail out was money!!! While Eric was catching fish in the riffle water I was hooking up in the tail out. We took a dozen fish out of that section the majority were quality fish.

I was having a heck of a time getting back to the road. I took the shortest route but it was almost impossible to get through the SEVEN FOOT TALL GRASS and up the steep incline to the road. I was crashing through the brush huffing and puffing like a locomotive and I looked up to see Eric standing on the road, He said "Jesse what are you doing?" My comment, get a winch so I can get out of here...

We worked for every fish but it was productive satisfying work. Because it wasn't easy, I am a better angler today.Get out there and fish be safe and resourceful you will catch fish.