Your Fishing Forecast for July 24th!
- Posted on
- By The Drift Team
Fishing Forecast for July 24th!
For all you river anglers out there, most rivers are now back to fishable levels for the weekend! Some larger rivers may still be a little muddy from last week's rain, however most small and medium rivers will be in good shape!
The list of fishing options this time of year is a long one, including largemouth on poppers, sightfishing smallmouth, musky, alternative species like gar and drum, plus, salmon will be starting to run some rivers soon!
Bass Forecast
Smallmouth fishing has been excellent on Great Lakes, central Ontario Lakes (Muskoka's, Haliburton, etc), and will start to pick up on rivers again now that rivers have dropped following last week's heavy rains. Smallmouth can be found in shallow water near rocks, points, docks, and other structure in the morning and evening hours. Through the day (especially if it's sunny), target points, walls and weedbeds adjacent to deeper water (10-25'). Poppers, clouser minnows, and crayfish patterns are all good bets!
Largemouth bass don't get the attention they deserve among fly anglers for some reason, and we don't know why! They love to eat flies, and they're happy to live in shallow waters near shore, all day and all summer long! Target structure like weedbeds, lily pads, docks, and submerged trees. Largemouth are suckers for poppers, leeches and crayfish!
Trout Forecast
Though some of our most popular trout rivers are too hot to ethically fish for trout, there are still options! This is the time of year to explore small rivers, you'll be surprised what's out there! Look at the smallest rivers that are heavily tree covered, more shade = cooler river, in addition to that, we'd advise that you limit your fishing to morning hours before things heat up and of course monitor water temperature as you go (68F cutoff for brown trout).
Alternative Species Forecast
Don't forget that there are a slough of very cool species that are relatively unpressured just because most people don't know they're there! We're talking about fish like gar, bowfin, and drum (sheephead). These fish can be found in shallow waters of many lakes (the Great Lakes especially), and readily eat flies! What's even cooler is that most of the fishing for them is sight fishing, what could be better?! If you want to learn to fish for these fish, stop by for a visit and we'll point you in the right direction!