Elk Fishing Well Again

[breaux]

I had the chance to hit the Elk yesterday and was pleasantly surprised.  The water looked great and the fishing was good.  I caught 10 (mix of browns and bows) and a couple were over 15".  They were hitting midges and sow bugs.  I did manager to let at least 5-6 nice fish (14" plus) get away.  I am not the greatest flyfisherman so this is not a huge surpise.  I had them on the rod (rod tip up) and let them take the line they needed and about 30 seconds to a minute into the fight , the fly would just pop out!  I changed flies to make sure the hooks were sharp.  Any hints on how i could have landed these fish or what i am doing wrong would be welcome.

[czkid]

Breaux;

A couple problems... a) The fish were taking short or light during that period and were therefore not well hooked.  b) If you were having any measure of sucess you were using flies in the size 14-18 range and sometimes the way the hook bends is a problem.  I tend to open up my smaller hooks by either bending the point down a bit or moving it to the side.  Caution... on smaller hooks you will find that lots of the manufacturers tend to over harden the hook and they will pop off when you attempt to bend them.  Slow and easy gets the job done.

Ralph

[David L. Darnell]

fished the Elk late this afternoon, got off the river at dark, caught quite a few fish on the usual small stuff.

[czkid]

Fished the Elk on Wed and did well... it appears that they must have stocked the river with rainbows last week sometime as we were running into lots of 12 inch 'bows today.  They stocked again today at about 1300, couldn't tell what they threw in, but a fish is a fish!

Ralph

[breaux]

Thanks for the feedback Ralph.  I will have to agree with you, since i was hooking the larger fish on size 18 midges, i think i get anxious and keep to much pressure on them and that pops the hooks out for smaller flies.  when i get the chance to hit the river again i will take your advice and open up the hook a bit and try to practice some patients.  Thanks again for you help!