Spring Valley Reservoir, ID
far end (opposite side from parking area)
Outing Information
- Date
- Start/End Time
- 12:30pm to 3:30pm
- Best Fishing Time
- 1:30 to 2:30
- Rating
- Good
- Classification
- Public
- Water Temp
- 52.0°F
- Water Clarity
- Stained - 1' to 3' visibility
- Water Level
- -
- User
- Derek Blandford
Fish Caught
Bluegill
| Caught | Avg Size | Pattern | Optional Fields |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 5" | #10 White Blandford Spider Streamer |
Fish Depth: 1' - 3' Water Depth: 3' - 6' Kept/Released: / 2 |
| 1 | 5" | #18 Red Zebra Midge | |
| 3 | 5" |
Rainbow Trout
| Caught | Avg Size | Pattern | Optional Fields |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | 12" | #10 White Blandford Spider Streamer |
Notable Fish: 1@14" Fish Depth: 1' - 3' Water Depth: 3' - 6' Kept/Released: / 32 Retrieve: short, quick strips with pause |
| 1 | 12" | #18 Red Zebra Midge | |
| 33 | 12" |
Weather
| Skies | Morning | Afternoon | Evening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mostly Cloudy | X | ||
| Precipitation | |||
| Rain - Light | X | ||
| Wind | |||
| Medium - 10 to 15 knots | X |
- Air Temp High/Low
- 56.0°F / -
- Wind Direction
- -
- Weather Front
- Today preceded a cold front.
- Barometer
- -
- Moon Phase
- 47% Full (First quarter)
Other Patterns Tried
- #10 Mahogany Mohair Leech
- #18 Silver Mirage Midge Emerger
Hatches
- 22 gray/black Midge Diptera
Insect Seining
No seining information for this outing.
Fishing Partners
No fishing partners were saved with this outing.
Waypoints
No waypoints were saved with this outing.
Tides
No tide information was saved with this outing.
Notes
Now that the ice is off, I decided to take my float tube out to Spring Valley Reservoir. The day started off really slow. The first hour I only had a couple of hits with no fish landed as I worked my way from the parking lot across the lake to the far side where it's generally pretty good this time of year. There were a lot of adult midges on the water, but only infrequent rises from fish. I put on a small zebra midge and finally landed a bluegill and had a couple other hits. Fishing still remained slow though.
The wind then picked up a bit. I decided to tie on a Blandford Spider Streamer with a zebra midge dropper. I fished this for a bit and caught several trout pretty quick. I caught one trout on the zebra midge dropper, but the others were on the Spider Streamer and/or snagged by the zebra midge leading me to believe those fish were also after the spider streamer. Therefore, I decided to remove the dropper and just use the spider.
At 1:30, the storm really started to roll in and the water became much more choppy. The fish then went nuts and became extremely aggressive, annihilating the spider on just about every cast. This continued for about an hour, then slowed down a bit, but I was still able to catch fish consistently casting the spider out and retrieving it with short quick strips followed by a short pause. The fish often hit on the pause. It then started to rain so I decided to leave even though the fish were still biting.
I ended up catching 33 trout in just a few hours of fishing. All in all a good day.
From my experience it seems like when a storm rolls in, one of two things usually happens. Either the fish completely turn off, or they go nuts. I wonder what the determining factor is?!?
The Blandford Spider Streamer continues to be my #1 fly year after year. I love fishing. :)
Comments
Jason
You and your wet fly are a throwback to an earlier time. :)
33 trout in 3 hours is pretty good. Nice work. It's weird that you were using a white fly and doing well.
Derek
Damn straight! I'm old school! ;)
I let the fish dictate what I use. They love that fly for whatever reason. I chose "white" because that's probably the best color description. It's tied with a regular, un-dyed mallard flank feather, so it's really more of a "salt and pepper" look.
Jason
What do you think about doing a little fly swap? You tie up and send me a few of your spiders in your two or three most popular colors, and I'll tie up some whatever-you-would-like in return.
Derek
Actually you should just join in on the fly swap Troy and I have been doing. (well trying to do. I'm kinda slow at getting him flies sometimes.) It's been working pretty well.
Basically he sends me 6 flies and then I send him 6 flies back. We leave it open to tie and send whatever pattern you want. And then we don't send any more flies until we get flies back. That way you're never out more than 6 flies if you send some and don't get any in return.
You could simply join in. You send 6 flies to Troy. You send 6 flies to me. Troy sends you 6 flies. Troy sends me 6 flies. I send you 6 flies. I send Troy 6 flies. Same rule applies: don't send any more flies to a person until you get some back.
That way, if somebody gets busy and doesn't have time to tie, the other two people can still keep sending flies back and forth.
I've actually been wanting to bring you in on this because I need to restock my fly boxes and I've been wanting to get some of the patterns you use with good success on the S.Fork Boise and Owyhee. By the way, nice work on the O this past weekend!
So what do you think?
Jason
Yeah, I think I will join your fly swap with Troy. Regardless of whether he wants me in it. :)
Derek
Cool. I'll email you our addresses.