THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF A RIVER August 22, 2007 - Well it certainly has been an interesting week on the Swift. While the water levels of the watershed have remained fairly consistent in the short term (somewhere around 100 cfs), the discharge was altered Tuesday afternoon and remained uncharacteristically low (around 50 cfs) until midday on Friday when water discharge was resumed. This made typically tedious fishing conditions even more tedious. On the positive side of the ledger, the river has returned to a more manageable discharge of 106 cfs, which in my opinion is almost perfect. While optimum angling periods remain dawn and dusk, you will have no problem locating marauding groups of fish anywhere along the entire river, both north and south of the Rt. 9 bridge. Query a dozen regs that normally frequent the watershed concerning fly selection and you're certain to receive a dozen contradictory responses. One theme that will remain consistent is size of fly, particularly when angling during daylight hours. While low light conditions will often inspire feeding trout to masticate a size #10 wooly bugger, there will be times when a size #22 cluster midge will not even draw a look due to it's mammoth proportion. Now that the sulphur hatch is a distant memory there are a number of late summer patterns you may consider when visiting the watershed. Depending on water level, weather, available light, atmospheric pressure, water clarity and insect activity here they are… Subsurface: RS2 Olive Bead Head (#20), Copper Brassie (#22), Copper John Peacock (#20), Copper John Red (#20), Pheasant Tail Nymph (#22), Chironomid Pupa (#20) and Serendipity Red (#20). Surface: Blue Winged Olive Parachute (#22), Adams Midge (#24), Parachute Black Ant (#22), Elk Hair Caddis (#20), Griffith's Gnat (#22) and San Juan Midge (#20). As is evident by the above list you leader construction will be a consideration. It is not uncommon for anglers to employ 9' 7X tapered leaders with and additional 3 feet of 7X or 8X of tippet, making the entire assembly in the neighborhood of 12 feet. With the advent of fluorocarbon (.004) anglers are now adding additional stealth and concealment to their presentations dramatically increasing their success. Good fishing and safe
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