Fished the Spokane river downstream of the Maple Street bridge for only an hour, but took five trout, the two largest being 17' and 19' respectively. The quality of the rainbows in this river systerm is remarkable given the harsch way the river has been treated over the years. The two largest trout were very much like the "leopard" strain of rainbows common to Alaska rivers and streams- heavily spotted the entire length of their bodies (literally from "head to toe", or fin in this case) with deep, "rich" colors, especially the red stripe marking their sides. I have fished the Spokane for years, and the trout here continue to amaze me, especially when you can catch them literally in the downtown area of a good sized urban city. Bug activity was sparse, and though I fished from 7;30-8:30, never saw any fish feeding on the surface or taking caddis pupae in the film. The best water seemed to be the shallow riffles that were just above drop offs of ledges where the water began to gradually slow and deepen. Tonight, the active trout seemed to be stacked up in these riffles to feed and were very aggressive. Slower, deeper runs were unproductive for me, so I concentrated on covering all the likely looking holding water within the heavily oxygenated areas of the river. The largest fish was hooked right above a small rock ledge in a shallow riffle less than two feet deep. He took a small size 18 cream colored beadheaded birdsnest nymph that was the dropper fly below a larger sz 14 cream/brown colored bh caddis pupae pattern (weight was needed to get the fly down- 1 BB sized split shot). The trout took the smaller pattern 4 to 1 over the larger, with the two largest fish both taking the smaller nymph pattern. I tried a number of nymphing techniques, but the most sucessful was simply casting them at a 45 degree angle upstream and allowing them to dead drift through the the "sweet spots" of the riffles/runs I was fishing. As summer progresses and hatches diminish, smaller nymph patterns, especially pupae imitations (or pseudo/baeties imitations like the Mercers micro mayfly nymph or tiny bh pheasant tails/hare's ears, lightning bugs, etc.) can really be productive in these shallow, heavily oxgenated sections of the stream that flow out into deeper, slower water which the fish move out of when they are looking to feed. August can produce some amazing fishing days for someone willing to nymph and go 'small', especially when the bugs are not moving.

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