My Weblog
Thursday, March 27, 2003
March 26th: Fished with Gary Miller of Mt. Vernon and Garrin Bott of Rockland, Id. on a falling and rising river. The temp in Fossil was 38 at 5 AM, 42 air temp at river and 43 degree water temp, 4460 CFS, clear morning with water clarity of 4-5. Gary caught the first fish at 8:50 AM and by lunch time we had 4 fish. The air temp at lunchtime was 50 and the water temp 45, but it was getting overcast. We had some weather set in in the afternoon, but ended up with 12 smallies for the day with Garrin getting 7. Some of the fish were caught on crankbait, but most were caught on grubs covered with Smelly Jelly. The water was rising and getting darker as the afternoon went on. We ended up with 6-7 for clarity, and it "blew out" on the 27th. It will take a couple of days to be fishable again (Sunday?).
Steve Fleming Mah-Hah Outfitters www.johndayriverfishing.com bassinbuddy@centurytel.netTuesday, March 25, 2003
System test only
Monday, March 24, 2003
March 24th: Fished with a great Father-Son team of Bruce Meredith and son Micheal. Bruce runs Mallardith Northwest in the Maupin area, and Micheal helps him out. They run a great Bird Hunting Preserve with great dogs and birds. You can reach Bruce at 541-328-6440 or MALLARDITH@aol.com. We fish with 23 degrees in Fossil this morning and 33 degree temp at Service Creek with 42 degree water, 6010 CFS, water clarity of 8, and very clear skies. It was a beautiful day with Micheal catching the first fish at 10 AM. We had 4 fish at lunch and start back out with 56 temp and water of 44 degrees. Bruce boated a 20 3/4" X 13 1/2" hog, our 5th Master Angler fish of the year. We wended up with 10 fish, which wasn't bad with the dirty water we had to work with. All the fish came on grubs covered with Smelly Jelly Earthworm paste and Craw/Anise liquid.
Steve Fleming-Mah-Hah Outfitters-www,johndayriverfishing.com -bassinbuddy@centurytel.netSunday, March 23, 2003
March 22nd: Fished with long time friends Keith Yamaguchi and Joe Merlino from the Seattle area. We started out with a temp in Fossil of 50 degrees, the temp at the river was 51 and the water was 46, with 3480 CFS, a clarity of 4 on an overcast morning. The first fish came at 11:30 AM and we had 8 before lunch. After lunch we still had 51 degrees air and 46 degree water and overcast sky, but the fish were starting to bite real good. They caught 23 fish that afternoon for a total of 31. They caught some nice 14 to 17" smallies, but almost every fish caught was on the bottom. The barometer had fallen a little since yesterday, and put the fish down along with the water not warming during the day.Everything was caught on grubs covered with Smelly Jelly Earthworm paste and Smelly Jelly Craw/
Anise liquid.Friday, March 21, 2003
March 21st: Another great day on the river with the Miller family: Leroy (father), Lamont (son), Dean(son, and fourth Master Angler of the Year, 20" X 13 1/2"), and son-in-law Jeremy Lewis. They have been many times and all knew the ropes except Jeremy. He was a quick study and boated 9 smallmouth with some nice 14"-17" fish. We had 40 degrees in Fossil this AM, with 44 at the river, and a water temp of 46 degrees. The river was flowing 3810 CFS, clarity of 5-6, overcast, with some rain during the day. Lamont boated the first fish at 8:37, we had 17 by lunch time and Dean's Master Angler fish. They ended the day with Dean also boating a 19 1/4 " smallie, and the four fishermen had a total of 59 fish. We should have eatten lunch sooner? The fish were evenly divided between crankbait and grubs covered with Smelly Jelly Craw/Anise doing the trick. The river is dropping and clearing so things look good. Our newest guide Scott Carter was guiding Dearn Miller when he caught his Master Angler fish. It's great to have another great guide who can put our clients on big fish.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
March 17: Fished with a great Father-Son team of Ray Stewart (360-225-6642) and Nathan Stewart from Woodland and Vancouver, Wa. area. The river flow had just peaked on St. Patrick's Monday and was heading down, but the muddy water was clear out to the banks with very limited visiblity at the bank. I thought with the river going down, the cold night, etc. the water might clean up at the bank, but it didn't. We start out with 34 degreees at Fossil, 41 at the river, and the water temp had dropped to 42 (47 on monster fish Saturday), 6270 CFS (droped about 500 CFS during our trip), water clarity of 8-9. I'm sorry to say we did not catch a smallmouth till 3:30, but Ray boated our third Master Angler fish of the year, a beautiful 21 3/4 X 14 girth. He caught one more fish and that was the total for the day. The water never did warm up much, 44 when we took out with the air temp of 47. Ray and Nate both fished hard and did all the things that had made us sucessful on Saturday (30 fish), but the conditions were just against us. The good news is another Master Angler fish, and we have a "Fish On" guarantee when you fish with us, so Nate's next trip will be free. Thanks for sharing our joy and sorrow!
STEVE FLEMING-MAH-HAH OUTFITTERS-www.johndayriverfishing.com-bassinbuddys@centurytel.netSunday, March 16, 2003
Sunday, March 16, 2003
March 15th: fished with friends mike crowe (253-631-3220) and jess koellermeier (253-569-9389) from the kent, wa. Area. We ran into a situation i've never seen before; the river went up over 2000 cfs to 4650 cfs, squirrelly weather, but two days of heavy overcast at night (45-50 degree nights in fossil), and the river water warmed up from 43 first thing in the morning to 47 degrees at 7am. While the main flow in the middle of the river was dirty and water clarity of 7-8 we could still see about 12-15 feet of clean water at the banks, and you could see a good 2 feet down. We talked about going at the putin at service creek or going onto the private largemouth lake. I felt they would catch around 10 fish and i would put the "fish on" guarantee if they wanted to do the river, and being the adventurous types they were mike and jess decided to do the river. Good choice: 30 fish later, with lots of 14"-16" fish, one 18 1/2", and sit down for this one: the largest smallmouth a client of our has ever caught - 22" x 15 3/4" - an absolute heavy toad (using the girth squared times the length devided by 800 formula= 6 pounds 13 ounces). Mike crowe became our second master angler of the season (37 last year), and now hold the king's spot with this huge fish. We caught every fish on 4" twin tail grubs on 1/4 ounces slider hooks, and one of the most important features was they were covered with smelly jelly nightcrawler paste and smelly jelly craw/anise scent. You guessed it all the fish were caught very close to the shore where there was no current and a spot of flat water. Oh, mike also caught the first smallie at 9:59 am which is the earliest anyone has boated a fish yet this year. I thank god and mike for a great day on the river, even if we did get soaked to the bone.
Report by Steve Fleming
bassinbuddy@centurytel.net
www.johndayriverfishing.com
Wednesday, March 12, 2003