We had a lot of water this week.

The river was at 299 CFS Sunday. This is very high, not flooded by any means, just high. There’s a strong flow, and the water is still off color. It’s not muddy, just has that blue-green murky color to it.

Fly fishing will be tough for a few days. Mop flies, glo balls, big buggers and bigger streamers will probably work best. There will be a place or two where you can go in and fish the smaller nymph, or maybe even a dry fly here and there, but overall, the better fishing will be with heavier and larger flies, something with color and a little bit of flash in it.

PowerBait will still work great. On Saturday, the yellow and the pink 1-inch grubs (crawlers) did very well, as did the white eggs, orange eggs and fluorescent yellow eggs, and there were several fish caught on orange worms yesterday.

With the higher water, you can get away with 4-pound line no problem there. Spinners will also be really good, especially first thing in the morning as usual for about 30-40 minutes. You may have to add a little weight to them to get them down, reel them slow and hopefully the fish will latch onto it pretty quickly.

Spinners are good for about 30 minutes, then we go back to worms or eggs or heavy Maribou jigs.

Maribou jigs will catch trout. You will need to use a 1/16th ounce or a 1/8 ounce jig right now to get down to where the fish are located. There are a few places where you can throw a smaller lighter jig, but not very many as the water drops.

There will be more little eddys created where the water is actually not moving as fast. In these areas you will be able to fish smaller Jigs. With the increased water, no matter what you’re fishing with, you will probably need to add extra weight.

We were fishing as much as a half-ounce sinker with PowerBait Saturday as the water dropped. We were going back to quarter ounce, and I imagine for the next day or two that will be fine.

When the water is up like this, heavier lures like spoons will work very well. They sink quickly and stay down where the fish are at longer.

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.