I hit the lake today at 3:00. I’ve started fishing the area above the marina. It was an interesting day, weather and fish-wise. The photo above was taken at 4:00 PM. The day started just like a usual, hot, summer day. I started trolling upstream with a size 12 gold bead sheep creek special. After 15 minutes a 20+ inch trout came totally out of the water within my casting range. I stopped the boat and fished by casting and stripping the fly.
I was rewarded with a very fat 16 inch rainbow. It filled up most of my net. I thought I had to be larger because of it’s girth, but it measured out at 16 inches. It fought really hard and may have been a hold over fish and not a cage raised fish, or both?
I had no more takes after 10 minutes, and a chop and wind came on the water. I moved more upstream and started using my midge rod at 3:30. On my first cast, after 90 seconds, my indicator went under and I set up on the fish. However, I lost both flies and the indicator. I was using 6X fluorocarbon tippet and the line broke like spider silk. It took me 15 minutes to duplicate the rig due to the wind. I cast out into the same spot, waited 3 minutes with no takes. As I was stripping the line back in I had a strike and a flash of a large silver side of the fish. Again, however, both flies and the indicator were lost.
I set up another rig with 5X monofilament. I didn’t have any luck as the wind made it difficult to see the indicator and no taps or strikes were observed. The top photo was during this time. I started trolling again, with no takes. At 5:00 it turned from a blustery, windy Fall / Winter day to Spring time. The wind stopped. The lake became flat as paper. And the temperature was cooler and very comfortable.
I continued trolling and was heading in when I got a strike. It was another fat, beautiful 16 inch fish (same one?). As I removed the fly the fish escaped so no photo was taken. After 15 more minutes a few fish started rising to a small hatch. I cast out my midge rig and immediately landed a 13 inch planter. As I was deciding what to do? Move? Troll? Midge fish? Go in and call it quits for the day? Then it started raining, lightly then fairly hard.
I took the rain as a sign to go in. I don’t like being the only boat, Aluminum, on a lake when lightning may occur.
So, another beautiful day on the lake. An adventure in midging , trolling, and weather. It was a beautiful day with beautiful fish.
Tight Lines!