4/22

[Red Childress]

We decided not to fish the high river water on Saturday and move to Tionesta Lake for Sunday. Tionesta was about 15 feet above normal pool. Within the first hour, we had bagged a super fat 46. The sun got high and that was the last fish we saw all day. Water temps on Tionesta maxed out at 44.8 by 4pm.

I will post pictures as soon as I get them.

[gfishes]

Red I'm not familiar with the lake. Would it be propeller friendly, the ramp by the Nebraska bridge looks somewhat shallow? I'm always looking for places to take the lake boat when the river is blown up. Walleye there too?

[Red Childress]

Nebraska area is not prop-friendly at normal levels. Drifting into the lake would be doable but the trek back to Nebraska could be problematic.

No walleye/pike, some smallmouth, tons of smaller perch/crappie and muskies.

[ttabaleulb]

Congrats on what sounds like a very nice fish!! I finally got out for a bit last week. Got a few hours in on Wednesday but got knocked off the water Thursday by wind and snow. Thank you Mother Nature, may I have another? LOl I did have one shot at a low 30's fish. Ended up getting a case of "Buck Fever" and pulled the fly away from the fish, not once, but TWICE on the same figure 8!! On the second strike, the fly was basically completely in its mouth and I still managed to pull it away. As usual, the first 3 or 4 chances I get every year, I screw up one way or another. I'm hoping that one counts as two and I have another shot soon to put one in the net.

Next trip looks to be chasing Tigers in a couple weeks.

Forgot to mention, water temps for me were close to what you are seeing up there Red. Started around 44 and surface temps got to near 46 late afternoon. I'm hoping we start to see those temps climb pretty good over the next couple of weeks.

[Red Childress]

At least you had some fly action!! Hopefully, the tigers will be a little more cooperative.

I need to check my logs but IIRC, this could be the coldest (late-April) river temperature I have seen in twenty+ years.

[ttabaleulb]

Yep, I'll always appreciate any sort of action or at least a sighting.

That wouldn't surprise me if these are the lowest temps in a while. Been a heck of March and April, thats for sure.

I'm hoping the Tigers will be a bit more active. Now that I think about it, I've only really chased them in the Fall with any regularity. Should be interesting to see what they are up to. One of these days, I'm gonna actually land a nice 40+ inch Tiger and get a repro done. I've had a couple pretty close, but the biggers ones always seemed to find away to stay out of the net when I hooked em.

[ttabaleulb]

Damn, that fish definitely has some serious heft to it!! Way to go. Do you believe that weight is possibly eggs, or just very well fed??

[Red Childress]

She was egged-up for sure but was also stockily built.