Posted on August 27 2026
Encouraged by both the bugs on the water and the fish in the net last night, I woke up this morning with the thought of seeing if I could find some fish eating tricos. It was chilly and I had plenty of time before the spinner fall but I ended up working in the yard and it was noon before I came in for lunch.
Drove off at two with no clear idea of what I was going to do. Drove up to Deposit, not to fish, but to consult with Lloyd Hornbeck about the stripers. We ended up talking for an hour. Left Hornbeck's and drove over to the Troutfitter to say hi to Dave and there were three cars in the lot. Detoured up route 8 and came down river road. Saw a couple bugs on the water, no rises and a lone fisherman standing in the Red Barn pool. Came back to the shop and it was closed.
The bugs - - - - - - - .
The fishing - Was almost as bad. Fished another spot on the BR, from 5:00 until 7:30 saw two rises out where I couldn't reach them and one, two, or three fish quietly taking something I couldn't see in a slower part of the stream. They were the same type of rises that ended up being two nice rainbows that ate my olive last night. The first two rises came back to back and the fish was not impressed with my iso. Changed to the olive and a/the fish rose 20 feet downstream and five feet further away. Cast at the area of the rise and a fourth rise appeared 30 feet further away. That riser also ignored my fly. Waited a good 15 minutes but never saw another rise, (or a bug to rise for). I did raise three rainbows on blind casts, two ate, were hooked and landed. The third wanted nothing to do with the iso, spinner, white fly or olive I offered. Reeled it in and drove down to Lordville where I got out the spinning rod and with Lloyd's articulated brown trout lure, covered the water with no sign of the striper.
No one wants to see Isos, hebes ants and olives more than me, but it is still August.
A119
So if you catch a striper, are you gonna eat it?
It always seemed to me that the BR needs a decent release (at least 800 cfs) or you need to be wearing a coat while fishing for the fishing to be good from here on out.
Years ago I was fishing with my buddy Don on the Missouri River. He had landed a nice one, and after he and his fish posed for some photos, he noticed that his net had been lost in the process and was floating somewhere downstream. It had been given to him as a gift, from his grandfather I believe, and it meant a great deal to him. There was a group of chatterboxes fishing quite a ways downstream from where their sounds traveled up to us unhindered, including one of them mentioning sometime later a net floating in the river. Don hustled down to retrieve his net and the other anglers were stunned that we had heard them speak of the net floating down on them, to which Don responded something like, “Are you kidding? We’ve heard every word you’ve said for the last two hours.”
👍👍👍👍