North Raven/Stauffer Report - July 14

[jaydub99]

I haven't fished this creek for about 8 years and wow, things have really changed. I seem to remember going in near the 761 and being able to wade the stream for a mile or 2 with brookies all the way up and a few browns here and there. But it looks nothing like I remember. At least 5 different spots I was up to my knees in silt and getting deeper, so I had to climb out and hike around. There were some great looking holes, but after getting no strikes I'd approach and realize they were half-filled with silt and weeds. In about 2 miles I found maybe 6 or 7 little stretches with a nice rocky bottom and quick water, I saw maybe 10 brookies in total, got 3 strikes and landed 2. Didn't see a single rise in 10 hours.

I stopped at a few other crossings, but it looked similar and the people I met were having no luck either. One guy said he caught 2 browns on Saturday (19" and 21"). I didn't notice any hatches on Sunday, so I was just trying a lot of random stuff, stimmies, hoppers, adams, wulffs, royal coachman (that's what the brookies were hitting).

I dunno, is my memory bad? Or is this river seriously in decline? I don't see how the fish can survive in all that silt. I assume it comes from runoff of plowed fields? I wish someone could build a few sediment traps to create some long stretches of good fishing/spawning grounds.