August, brings with it the dog days of summer. Heat and humidity are not always conducive for good trout fishing, particularly as we see water temperatures rise. Trout are a cold water species and as a rule prefer optimum temperatures from 50 to 60. High water temperatures reduce the available oxygen content which stresses fish. They become lethargic and are reluctant to feed.
Fortunately for us, our rivers are tailwaters and are subject to generation flows that will as a rule maintain both adequate water temperatures and oxygen levels that the fish are comfortable with.
Even so, you will find that Trout at this time of the year may well cease to feed actively during the heat of the day.
Much of the food base that trout eat will also become non-active during periods of high heat and intense light, which in simple terms means the best options to fish will be early and late.
That is not to say you will not be able to locate and catch fish during other times, but to do so you will need to look for comfort zones. They will include those that create agitation within the water column, such as fast moving water over shallows and riffles. They will also seek out moss beds and cover from the direct effects of light around structure, under overhanging vegetation and places of that nature.
These are the primary places to concentrate your fishing efforts.
Days that reduce the effects of direct light influence, with cloud cover will be as a rule good days on the river.
Given the above information a good course of action will amount to this:
Fish the known zones both with dead drift nymph style fly patterns. You may also have to reduce your tippet to 5x or less and fish smaller flies before the fish will take your offering, during the periods of the day when things are slow.
At others times, early and late, as a rule the fish will be hungry and many other methods may be used---larger flies and flies that are worked such as soft hackles, wet flies and streamers.
This time of the year is also a good time to prospect with surface fished flies. There are many terrestrials that find themselves trapped on the water surface, hoppers, ants, leaf hoppers and many others. Fish will be found often very close to shore lines at this time looking for those bugs.
Ants and hoppers are favorites to use at this time.
In fact, two evening ago l fished at Rim doing just this, working within inches of the shore line with various flies, which accounted for 7 lovely Browns and a bunch of Bows.
You may well find that the period after the sun has dropped out to ward dusk will be a great deal of surface activity all over the river. As a rule, the fish are not that fussy, so far as the fly you use; but you have to be able to fish the fly within the zone of vision the fish are looking.
In this situation, you can go with generic dry flies, soft hackles and wet flies. The deal is to give the fish in the zone you are fishing plenty of time to see your fly and rise to take it.
Soft hackles and wet flies are best worked with a very slow retrieve, dry flies dead drift in the area of activity.
Midge emergence also at this time may be large, and here l would suggest you use soft hackles, 16's to 18's that are black and silver combinations. Simple black thread bodies with a flat silver rib and a few turns of black hen hackle can be a killer at this time.
Want to nail a trophy Brown? This is the time of the year to go for it, if you are able to stay out on the river and fish. Those big fish know that fall is on the way, and that is the time they will start to move upstream to the known spawning zones. It is as if a trigger tells them to feed hard during this period before the food base starts to decline and before they are more interested in the rituals of the spawn.
No matter how large a fly you use, a large Brown can eat it. l frequently use flies that are anything from 4 to 6ins in length. They are not weighted as such but flies that contain elements of light weight fly tying material---marabou, streamer hackles and muddler heads.
Easy to cast flies are needed when fishing during the dark hours.
As a rule l will go with a dry line most times, and on occasions an intermediate. Big fish will see the fly regardless of its position within the water column. They can also sense movement.
The deal is not to let the fish know you are there. So careless wading and splashing around, flash lights and all else is not a good approach.
Running a boat during darkness on these rivers can be also very productive, but make very sure you know where you are, as often as not heavy fog may well descend and you can become very disoriented if you are not familiar with the surroundings.
High water flows may also float large logs and debris, and that is not something you wish to run into either.
l wouldn't recommend it unless you are well experienced, as you can become totally lost, and sink the boat.
The same also applies if you are wade fishing. Make very sure you know where you are and how to return from whence you came.
Generation schedules have been up and down, so you will need to check by phoning 870.431.5311 for the current status.
OK, that's the fishing report. I will be fishing the rivers in MT this month; then will return to AR ready for the fall season, which can provide us with some of the best fishing of the year
Davy Wotton
