Sipping Trout Below the Dam at Smith Lake

I have been waiting for two weeks to get to fish the tailrace below the dam at Smith Lake. The constant flow below the dam has been off for much of the month. The engineers at the dam are installing a new pump system that will produce a constant flow 24/7 instead of the off and on again flow that has been occurring for the past 6 months. My son, son-in-law and I all made a short trip to the tailrace Saturday evening and found the engineers had solve the problem and the water was moving perfect for some mountain like trout stream fishing. The water temperature was around 55 and there was not much of a rise. We landed one each for the afternoon, using the size 18 dry gnat and a 22 midge. The trout were feeding at the surface, but it was not the aggressive takes one would see this time of year. It was more like a sipping motion. I have seen this before and have never been able to figure out how and what to use to get the take, when this is happening. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see the trout and not be able to get any takes. We tried a number of patterns but none seen to produce on a consistent basics. True we all landed one trout each, but it seems in this particular case the trout know when the pattern is fake and the action is over. I do know that fish turn on and off as far as feeding cycles is concerned so I guess this was one of those off cycles. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope everyone has a save and hearty Thanksgiving. 

  

Nice bow on the 3 wt. This trout had some width to it. After the picture it swim off to fight another day

My son off in the distance right after he landed his trout for the evening

This little guy was helping us get our gear together, of course he let us know it was not fair he didn't get to go.