Rush Reports

Fished the Rod & Gun Club and El Paso, Fri. the 20th of Aug.
Picked up one fish, a 15″ on a #18 pheasant tail at the gun club. Walked though some pools to try and scare some fish. The numbers seemed to be down.
Caught 4 12″ fish in one pool on the same fly in El Paso. Another angler got a 16″ fish. I arrived at 8:30 A.M., no Tricos. Only saw a few small fish rising. The river has changed. Some pools seemed deeper, some shallower. Found 1 or 2 small nymphs on the few rocks I checked.

I nosed around the Rush upstream from 465th, and found a lot of remodeling. Previously productive runs and pools filled in with a lot of sand and pea gravel. Rocks scoured clean with no bug life, save for a few caddis tubes in the rare spot that a little weed life was left. I saw no mayfly nymphs at all, and no trikes in the air. Lots of trees ripped out. There was enough water in the woods, that the skeet hatch was incredible.

Fished the Rush below Martel on the 25th with fish rising from 7 a.m. ’til I got off the water at noon. Water temps were mid 50’s to 60 during the time I was on the water. A light to moderate Trico hatch came off for about an hour starting at roughly 9:30. Fish were taking a variety of flies: Elk Hair Caddis, Hopper, Beetle (on a retrieve – go figure), Trico para and spinners. Most were sipping at the surface but some more agressive out-of-the-water rises. They were not moving much outside of a narrow feeding lane so accurate casts were a must. Skeeters were intense if you weren’t in the stream where the breeze was.