A Different Way of Fishing The Run Off

As I have stated previously, at this time of the year the snow melts in the mountains as the weather warms, which fills mountains streams with water, which in turn fills area rivers with water.  This is referered to as "run off" and it makes the river fishing that I love to do virtually impossible due to high/muddy water. 

Well, there is a way that the run off can be used to you advantage when fishing and when a friend of mine invited me to go out on his boat and fish the Hungry Horse Reservoir I was introduced to a technique that I wasn't previously aware of.  You see, as the mountains streams swell, full of "run off" water, that water obviuosly has to go somewhere and in the case of a reservior such as the one that we were going to be fishing, the water simply dumps into the reservior.

What I learned is that when this happens the trout that live in said reservoir will congregate in these area's to feast on the tasty morsels that the run off brings them.  Also, at this time of the year the cutthroat trout in Hungry Horse Reservoir spawn, which means that salmon eggs are an excellent bait to employ.  So I grabbed a jar of Pautzke's Balls O Fire salmon eggs, some small styrofoam floats, and we headed out. 

Sure enough, by using a single # 10 hook, a split shot sinker on my line, and a small float about three feet up my line, we experienced some success.  Within a couple of hours we caught 8 cutthroat and two rainbow trout between us.  I mean sure, none of them were huge, with the biggest being about fifteen inches, but it was still a lot of fun.  We were fishing where the dirty run off water met the clean reservoir water.  It was enjoyable and a different way of fishing the run off to be sure.