The Dream Stream is somewhat mysterious. The fish appear, disappear and reappear. "Cookie Cutter" Cutthroats are numerous. I am not sure if they have been there all along, even in the high Spring floods, or if they moved in from above or from the reservoir below. The Dream Stream has had problems in recent decades of the fish not remaining. Stocking programs seem to largely fail even after all the habitat improvements were in place. But now, after we had record flows that blew out a lot of the habitat improvement structures/logs, a good population of fish are hanging in the lower meanders where habitat improvement structures were
never placed.
Regardless, we have been enjoying some good dry fly fishing on the lower section. Fish are mainly taking Tricos during the morning hatch but we have also been doing well on bigger flies. Amy's Ants, hoppers and yellow Sallies have been producing. The conditions are perfect to throw some type of double dry fly rig.
The usual nymphing rigs are also working: San Juan worms, RS2's, Zebra midges are all taking fish.
It will be interesting to see what shapes up, (or moves up and down) this Fall. You might turn around and be staring at a 30 inch Brown that just chased away the 14 inch Cutthroat you just landed.
By lower section, I assume you are talking about the area below the bridge hole?
ReplyDeleteYes, Way down! Almost to 11 mile. I actually park in 11 mile state park where you first enter and walk across to the lower river. There is a somewhat straight slow section of river before it dumps into 11 mile but I was upstream of that in the big meanders. Nice looking water! Cutts along the edges looking up. A few big 20+ resident fish roaming around also. Most dry fly action was mid to late morning. Have fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip. We will definitely try that section over Labor Day week. Maybe we'll cross paths on the stream.
ReplyDelete