bd-
09-13-2011, 12:36 PM
I have always been interested in the Elk River, but for some reason, I've never really fished it much. I hardly know anything about it, and I should, since the Elk seems like it’s often fishable when the Caney, Obey, and other local tailwaters are not.
So, last Sunday, I decided to sign up for Fly South’s Elk River outing with John "Pumpkin" Morris to learn about access areas and the general "character" of the river. We looked at several access points, kicked up some screens to look at what bug life is in the river, talked about what flies are reliable, and fished a little.
I was shocked at the difference in the abundance of bugs on the Elk compared to the Caney Fork. I have to say I don't know why the biomass on the Elk is so poor. On the Caney, kicking up a screen will get you dozens and dozens of scuds and sowbugs, blackfly larvae, midge larvae, and as you move downstream, plenty of mayflies and caddis and maybe even a stonefly. On the Elk, we got mostly silt.
There were a handful of scuds or sowbugs on most screens, and we saw a few midge larvae and a couple mayfly larvae throughout the day. No caddis at all. Even with thick beds of vegetation on the bottom, and even at access sites farther away from the dam, many screens came back empty and we never got a single one with any abundance of bugs.
I have no idea why this is. The Elk has very consistent flows now, without the daily bottom scouring and huge flux of depth that the Caney gets. And as far as I know, low dissolved oxygen is not a bad problem (though perhaps I'm wrong on that). The spilling should keep the temperature consistent and moderated. The water is clearly not lacking in nutrients, because there is an overabundance of weeds and algae in the water if anything.
I can only make two guesses as to why the insect life might be so poor: (1) the abundant silt chokes the bugs out; or (2) maybe the watercress farms that pump river water out for irrigation and let it drain back in are affecting the river somehow, with pesticide runoff or something like that. But I don’t know. Surely the silt shouldn’t choke out midges, since they live in some muddy places, and SURELY the farms would be regulated against letting that level of chemicals run off into a trout stream – right???
The silt was pretty heavy. The river overall had a lot of color in it, though clarity seemed to vary a little from access point to access point. Kicking the bottom for the insect screens near the dam in particular produced very big clouds of brown mud – not something I’m used to seeing on trout water. I’m surprised USFWS isn’t looking at this issue more closely – I’d think that much silt would have a good chance of being detrimental to the endangered mussels they’re concerned about in the tailwater.
Despite the silt and rarity of bugs, the river seemed to fish okay. Not spectacular, but not too bad either. Early in the day, I picked up eight browns and missed several more throwing hoppers tight against the bank in the upper river. It seemed like every overhanging branch or bush held a fish that would at least give a swirl under the hopper if he didn’t outright eat it. That brings me to one thing I do really like about the Elk – the consistent flows without so much up-and-down generation makes it look more like a “natural” river. The grass and trees grow right up to the edge of the water, rather than having a 40 foot gravel bar at low water due to the effects of generation. This means fishing with terrestrial patterns (like hoppers) is more productive. Also, the trout act a little more like they do in natural streams since they’re not dealing with the constant water fluctuation. They gravitate toward bank undercuts and feeding lanes and stay there, rather than moving around through the day to cope with the rising and falling water.
After the sun got higher and the hopper action dried up, I struggled for a while. I kept trying to throw the small flies that work on the Caney - #20 zebra midges, #18 sowbugs, and the like. Pumpkin finally convinced me that the Elk is a different sort of river, and he showed me a big black and gold beadhead number he called the “Commodore” (in about a #14!). That proved to be the magic fly of the day. By that time we’d worked our way down to the Ferris Creek access, and the Commodore fly was getting me hits on nearly every cast for a little while. I brought several rainbows to hand – nothing big, but they were consistent – before I finally broke the fly off and started messing around trying to find other patterns that would work as well. Nothing else seemed to have the same mojo though.
After a while, we left Ferris and worked our way down to Old Dam Ford, but there just wasn’t a whole lot happening there. We fished two different access points in the immediate vicinity of ODF, but I think out of our whole group only one person caught one small rainbow. There were a very large number of chubs and big creek shiners caught here, but those don’t really count.
All in all, the Elk wasn’t too bad. I need to float it now a couple times to get a better feel for what’s between the wading points. I got the impression that the water from the Dam to Ferris would be the place to concentrate – Old Dam Ford was pretty water but didn’t seem to have many trout. I would have liked to have seen some bigger fish – I know there are a few in there based on the most recent TWRA shocking surveys, but I didn’t see them. Those trout must be eating baitfish – they sure wouldn’t get big eating what little bug life I saw. So streamer fishing from a boat would probably be the only way to have a shot at them.
The river was good enough that I’m already thinking about hauling the Gheenoe down there one day soon for a float. Without any generation pulses, running back upstream without a jet probably isn’t an option, but I can always find someone to shuttle or bring a second person along to fish with. It’s a nice river and I look forward to learning more about it.
bd
So, last Sunday, I decided to sign up for Fly South’s Elk River outing with John "Pumpkin" Morris to learn about access areas and the general "character" of the river. We looked at several access points, kicked up some screens to look at what bug life is in the river, talked about what flies are reliable, and fished a little.
I was shocked at the difference in the abundance of bugs on the Elk compared to the Caney Fork. I have to say I don't know why the biomass on the Elk is so poor. On the Caney, kicking up a screen will get you dozens and dozens of scuds and sowbugs, blackfly larvae, midge larvae, and as you move downstream, plenty of mayflies and caddis and maybe even a stonefly. On the Elk, we got mostly silt.
There were a handful of scuds or sowbugs on most screens, and we saw a few midge larvae and a couple mayfly larvae throughout the day. No caddis at all. Even with thick beds of vegetation on the bottom, and even at access sites farther away from the dam, many screens came back empty and we never got a single one with any abundance of bugs.
I have no idea why this is. The Elk has very consistent flows now, without the daily bottom scouring and huge flux of depth that the Caney gets. And as far as I know, low dissolved oxygen is not a bad problem (though perhaps I'm wrong on that). The spilling should keep the temperature consistent and moderated. The water is clearly not lacking in nutrients, because there is an overabundance of weeds and algae in the water if anything.
I can only make two guesses as to why the insect life might be so poor: (1) the abundant silt chokes the bugs out; or (2) maybe the watercress farms that pump river water out for irrigation and let it drain back in are affecting the river somehow, with pesticide runoff or something like that. But I don’t know. Surely the silt shouldn’t choke out midges, since they live in some muddy places, and SURELY the farms would be regulated against letting that level of chemicals run off into a trout stream – right???
The silt was pretty heavy. The river overall had a lot of color in it, though clarity seemed to vary a little from access point to access point. Kicking the bottom for the insect screens near the dam in particular produced very big clouds of brown mud – not something I’m used to seeing on trout water. I’m surprised USFWS isn’t looking at this issue more closely – I’d think that much silt would have a good chance of being detrimental to the endangered mussels they’re concerned about in the tailwater.
Despite the silt and rarity of bugs, the river seemed to fish okay. Not spectacular, but not too bad either. Early in the day, I picked up eight browns and missed several more throwing hoppers tight against the bank in the upper river. It seemed like every overhanging branch or bush held a fish that would at least give a swirl under the hopper if he didn’t outright eat it. That brings me to one thing I do really like about the Elk – the consistent flows without so much up-and-down generation makes it look more like a “natural” river. The grass and trees grow right up to the edge of the water, rather than having a 40 foot gravel bar at low water due to the effects of generation. This means fishing with terrestrial patterns (like hoppers) is more productive. Also, the trout act a little more like they do in natural streams since they’re not dealing with the constant water fluctuation. They gravitate toward bank undercuts and feeding lanes and stay there, rather than moving around through the day to cope with the rising and falling water.
After the sun got higher and the hopper action dried up, I struggled for a while. I kept trying to throw the small flies that work on the Caney - #20 zebra midges, #18 sowbugs, and the like. Pumpkin finally convinced me that the Elk is a different sort of river, and he showed me a big black and gold beadhead number he called the “Commodore” (in about a #14!). That proved to be the magic fly of the day. By that time we’d worked our way down to the Ferris Creek access, and the Commodore fly was getting me hits on nearly every cast for a little while. I brought several rainbows to hand – nothing big, but they were consistent – before I finally broke the fly off and started messing around trying to find other patterns that would work as well. Nothing else seemed to have the same mojo though.
After a while, we left Ferris and worked our way down to Old Dam Ford, but there just wasn’t a whole lot happening there. We fished two different access points in the immediate vicinity of ODF, but I think out of our whole group only one person caught one small rainbow. There were a very large number of chubs and big creek shiners caught here, but those don’t really count.
All in all, the Elk wasn’t too bad. I need to float it now a couple times to get a better feel for what’s between the wading points. I got the impression that the water from the Dam to Ferris would be the place to concentrate – Old Dam Ford was pretty water but didn’t seem to have many trout. I would have liked to have seen some bigger fish – I know there are a few in there based on the most recent TWRA shocking surveys, but I didn’t see them. Those trout must be eating baitfish – they sure wouldn’t get big eating what little bug life I saw. So streamer fishing from a boat would probably be the only way to have a shot at them.
The river was good enough that I’m already thinking about hauling the Gheenoe down there one day soon for a float. Without any generation pulses, running back upstream without a jet probably isn’t an option, but I can always find someone to shuttle or bring a second person along to fish with. It’s a nice river and I look forward to learning more about it.
bd