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Dear Myron:
Our fishing began early Saturday morning on February 20th. We put in at Kelly Ford and
took out that evening at Blair Bridge. The ambient temperature was in the 40's, and the
water temperature was 50 degrees. The flow rate was in the upper 700 cfs range, and the
water had a little color to it. Our fishing started out a little soft, with a juvenile
trout here and there, but it progressed later, turning out to be one of the best days of
fishing I have ever had (although you may pity me when you hear the sizes).
The surface activity was very light throughout the day, but midges and caddis flies were
seen in decent numbers. Our flies consisted of well weighted nymphs and occasionally we
dropped a crayfish imitation. I wish I could say that we had a special fly, of course
there are a few that we prefer on that river, but every fly we threw was just as effective
as the next. We used suggestive and imitative dark stone fly nymph patterns as well as
lighter colored mayfly and caddis nymphs (the former from sizes #6-#14, the latter in
smaller sizes, #10-#16). Often times we use beaded flies, other times not. We vary so much
that no one fly really stands out. In other words, the fish seemed to be very
opportunistic on this trip. There were only a few fishermen on the river that day, but
they had a head start on us so we never saw them, we only heard about them from Mrs.
McKee.
The wildlife was more abundant on the river than I had ever seen, maybe because there were
very few floaters. We saw a group of 50-70 turkeys cross from one side of the river to the
other, no more than a mile below the falls. We saw several of the largest flocks of geese
I've ever seen, I wouldn't doubt if there were several hundred flying overhead.
Occasionally, there were hawks and bald eagles (though I wouldn't say that the eagles were
older than five years and therefore not yet with whitecaps).
Back to the fishing. Sometimes I wonder if the fishing isn't better a little lower on the
river this time of the year, at least for the more adult fish. However, we caught a lot of
beautiful fish, I would say we each landed close to thirty, my partner a few more than
myself. He caught one 15" and one 17" rainbow, unfortunately, I never broke
14" the whole day. Between the both of us, we caught just one brown that day,
possibly because we confined ourselves to fishing riffles and runs. But we did see a lot
of big browns in the pools. It would be a nice day to limit your fishing to these areas, I
know that I personally neglect them a lot, though others may not.
Between the solitude, which I believe makes the North Fork what it is, and the abundant
wildlife, this will be a day remembered often and unlikely to ever be forgotten....
Ethan W.
Call today to make your Reservations!
River of
Life Farm
RR. 1 Box 4535
Dora, MO 65637
417-261-7777
Myron@RiverofLifeFarm.com
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