The SOHO has some finicky trout, well
at least it seemed like it from my week on the river. I am sure that
the blazing hot temperatures, gin clear water, and the fact that,
when water is low fish are holding at about ankle to shin deep,
didn't help. The fish were super spooky and ignored anything larger
than an 18. Pheasant Tails and Zebra Midges under a very discreet
indicator drew the first takes and soon a variety of small unweighted
nymphs trailing a very small shot were also taking fish.
Despite the fact that the river has a
very large stream bred brown trout population, rainbows made up about
4/5 of the fish caught. Which was nothing to be mad about because
these were some hard fighting beautiful fish. There browns I caught
tended to be a little larger than the 10 to 12in bows, but again that
is of the fish I was lucky enough to catch.
I say lucky because it seemed like
everyone was having difficulty catching fish the way they felt they
should. A friend of my told me that if I was not catching 20 to 30
fish a day than I should get a guide. I did not have a 20 fish day,
but it was not due to lack of fish, there were plenty of fish, let
me say that again PLENTY of fish, they were just not too cooperative.
When they ran water the river became
very difficult to fish and down right dangerous to wade. This is when
most people jump in the drift boats. Not only do the fish supposedly
turn on, but the river raises so much its smooth sails over some
otherwise rough rocky terrain. During this trip I did not get a
chance to drift the river, but will not miss out next time.
It does not take long for the wade
fisherman to figure out how to fish around the water releases. Water
takes time to make it's way down river, so with a little planning you
should have plenty of time to fish most of the places you want. The
very clever angler can also time when the water will be falling and
set themselves up accordingly.
All in All a Fantastic River, one of
if not my first choices to fish in the east, I will be coming back
ASAP. There are not only a ton of fish, there are some very, very big
fish in this river.
P.S. I lost my fishing camera on this
trip so I do not have any fish pictures and if anyone finds a light
blue Olympus camera with my ugly mug on it keep the camera and send
me the pictures!!!!!!!
Water Release Number 1-800-238-2264 code 4-01
