Swinging streamers for smallies. Dead drifting nymphs and buggers for quillback. On my local warmwater streams the same trout tactics I would apply to driftless area trout streams apply to warm water specs. On this outing I observed quillback taking insect larvae in the lower sections of riffles. Neat to see flashes of silver as the sucker would twist into position to grab a bite.With the water being very clear the smallies would spot me from long distances. The fish on this stream haven't been too easy to catch. Just enough of a challenge to make it interesting.
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| The silver of a quillback |
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| good looking warmwater stream in Iowa |
Small stream warmwater is my favorite place to be. That stream in the picture looks just about perfect. Nice photos.
ReplyDeleteGreat pics. The scale shot looks like fish armor. Great looking water and smallie. Tight Lines.
ReplyDeleteAwesome Quillies! I've only ever caught 1, do they actively hit the flies or is it a drawn out ordeal?
ReplyDeleteJohn - quilback are picky eaters. I've had times when they're feeding and they'll take a nymph easily -- just like feeding trout. Gotta have a perfect drift and get it right infront of them. This quilback in the picture took my bugger as I was drifting a run for smallies. That's one fun thing about these streams -- you drift something on the bottom and you never know what will eat it.
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