We have had a record setting season thus far. The Saco river has been fishing very well as of late as have our smaller streams. The Andro has been okay with the best fishing early in the day. Look for the Andro to improve as waters cool heading towards September.
Saco:
The Saco has fished very well as of late. Early morning through about mid afternoon has offered consistent dry fly fishing. Early in the day BWO's and swung nymphs have done the trick. As the sun comes up it seems the dry fly bite actually improves as ants, beetles and hoppers are on the move and offer irresistible protein for Saco trout. Evenings offer a good bite on stoneflies and ants right at dark but this window can be small on hot days.
Hailey Lewis with her first Saco Brown trout
Ryan Mahan with a dry fly eating Rainbow
Andro:
We floated the andro almost every day last week. Results were mixed depending on conditions. Cloudy cool weather gave us some dry fly opportunities and nymphing was deadly early in the day. Bright sun and heat made for some slow hours later in the day. We are trying to stay off the Andro until temps drop over the next week or so. We feel the Saco is colder and we would rather not stress out the Andro fish that we know will be more than willing to bite once waters cool. This cooling process usually begins by mid-August and the Andro should be fishing well again by at least early September. Since the start of my beginning this report we hit the andro again on Tuesday August 8th. We had a good Isonychia hatch with fish taking both nymphs and dries. We landed fish to 13" and lost two over 15 inches with one in the high teens to low 20's. Fall is right around the corner!
A fine Andro bow that came on an Isonychia nymph.
Ellis:
The Ellis has been slow in the lower reaches with most stocked fish concentrated in the deeper pools. The upper river and even the upper fly only sections are actually seeing some decent wild brook trout enter the system. This may be due in part to the states reduction in stocking this stretch. We hope to see more wild brook trout over time but we hope the state will move to improve the regulations if they decide to eliminate stocking.
Small Streams:
Our smaller streams are fishing well right now. We have seen good numbers of both wild brook trout and wild rainbows on different streams. Fish have been taken on a variety of patterns depending on weather and time of day. Black Flying ants in a size 14 worked for me yesterday. Red and green hippie stompers, stoneflies, and yellow sallies have all taken fish on top. Prince and stonefly nymphs have been go to droppers and a small baby brook trout streamer has worked well to coax bigger wild brook trout.
Double on the dry!
If you are looking to book with us for this coming September and October please contact us ASAP as dates are going fast. We are looking forward to a productive August and fall!
Also if you are looking to book a trip for Arkansas this spring we will be planning to guide on the White and Norfork Rivers from March 5th Through March 30th. See our reports from last March to get an idea what happens down south!
Tight Lines,
Nate