May 5, 2024

The river is in great condition. We are running 90 CFS right now (200 after Tuesday morning’s storms), which isn’t bad for all the rain we’ve had in the area.

The water is not perfectly clear, but it is pretty clear when the sun is shining; you can see some of the fish. We had a very good week on rooster tail spinners; pink, yellow and brown power bait grubs; and white and pink salmon eggs. Eggs did very well this week.

You can use 4-pound line right now with little or no trouble probably be another week or two before we have to start using 2-pound again.

If you are fly fishing, black, olive and brown woolly buggers did very well this week. Nymphs that worked well this week were pheasant tails, burlaps and scuds. A 9’6X leader is fine right now for nymphing.

The last couple of days, there have been a few fish caught on elk hair caddis, beetles and cracklebacks. There are still fish rising a little bit in the afternoon, but it is not as good as it was a couple weeks ago. It should get really good in the next few weeks if the rain holds off.

There are still a few people doing well on Maribou jigs; you just need to use a little bigger jig. There are still places where you can get by with a 64th or an 80th ounce jig fish under an indicator. The best colors of jigs this week were black/yellow, olive, white and brown.

When the water is off-colored like it is now, small gold and small copper spoons work really well the little crank baits.

Crawdads and crick hoppers also work very well when the water is off-colored and up a little bit like it is now.

Good luck on the river this week!

Roaring River State Park trout-fishing tips are provided by Tim Homesley, owner of Tim’s Fly Shop, located at 23387 Hwy. 112.