Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Hopefully everyone gets to wet a line with the awesome weather we've been having. I went to 4MR the past couple days, and Lane joined me yesterday.
Tuesday, I didn't have a whole lot of luck (beyond some bluegill), but saw at lest 4 separate 16-18" largemouths, a huge carp (30+ inches), and an enormous largemouth cruising through the discharge (probably 25"). The bass would ignore clousers, follow some type of minnow, but wouldn't strike. I did see one hit, and he took it like a trout taking a nymph - but I didn't set on it fast enough. If I hadn't watched it, I probably wouldn't have known about the strike other than the fly hair being messed up.
Yesterday, it was a lot of the same - plenty of 16-18" bass hanging around, but same follow/no strike issues. Lane saw what was probably the same giant bass that I did on Tuesday. Dan had me try a massive saltwater baitfish fly to try to entice the big boy to bite from the outflow, but no success. It did, however, draw follows on my first two casts with it from a pair of ~14 inch stripers. With light getting low, I tried a dragonfly nymph and finally got a bite. Landed the fat ~14" guy attached. Lane tied on a similar fly and caught one about the same size.
The water seemed very high. I know I was there through peak tide, but I've never seen it like it was before. Even 3 or so hours before high tide, the water was too deep to wade across the river anywhere within about 150-200 yards downstream of the discharge. The tree that's usually on the island is also almost completely submerged during high tide too.