Palisades Reservoir is 70% capacity. Water managers have made room in the reservoir to catch the anticipated snowmelt and have dropped flows to 11,000 cfs. Flows have no changed in a week and fishing has improved with very good nymph fishing and some streamer action as well. The water is still cold so it will be a month or more before we see dry fly fishing but until then the subsurface fishing will be good.
With great Spring weather this week and forecasted for the weekend some of the tributaries are starting to run a bit higher and off color so the clearest water will remain on the upper river from the Dam to Conant as this section has the least amount of tributaries.
Top producing flies are the same this week as previous weeks with the addition of more egg patterns as we are seeing more rainbows move onto their spawning beds. A bit stonefly nymph trailed with a worm and/or an egg pattern is a great place to start. We are also catching fish on jig style nymphs and midge patterns. Streamers are also an option and we’re seeing fish chase streamers especially in deep slow water, even backwaters without moving water have been holding a few fish.
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