Opening Stockers

Tangletown was not a place for my 3wt setup, friend wanted to fish from the dock instead of kayaks after kids bailed out last night, so kastmaster it was! Lost and released a few, saved this ones from chocking on other people's powerbait. Now trying to convince the kids to take the fly rods on the kayaks for a 2nd round! Eagles and ospreys out in force. I think people outnumbered trout at least 4 to 1...
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No wife, no kids and definitely no work here! To quote a classic line from Golden Girls, “I’m regular, every morning at 8:00 I have to pee….unfortunately sometimes I don’t get outta bed until 9:00!”
I’ll bet this morning’s opener was frickin cold to put five tiny trout on their stringers!!
 
Fun day with stockers at the derby. Too congested for a fly rod this morning so we fished the spin rods. Stupid Stocker Leeches work under a plastic float though. Every bit as good as the power bait. We were in 4th with 10 minutes left when 2 bigger ones came in. Just missed out.
 

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The lake I live on was planted on 4/11.

I am sad to report no fish were caught from any floating devices, boats or barges. There was nobody using them!

When I first moved here there would be at least 25+ boats out there.
 
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Jim in Anacortes said:
Tomorrow a local lake opens. Apparently, it's been stocked with 12" to 13" and bigger 13"to 15" rainbows. Normally I would choose to fish anywhere else... than a crowded lake with dumb stockers. But I'm packing a lunch, and I have my float tube ready with green flies on a sinker. I'm expecting it will be quite a show. Kids with a stringer of trout always make me smile. I just plan on basking in the opening day vibe.
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Fishing is fishing. Hope you had a blast! 👍
 
Opening day at my local lake did not disappoint. When I got there mid morning it was in full swing. Dozens of boats of all kinds, parking lot packed, every shore space occupied. AND they were all catching fish! It was truly a heart warming experience just to watch. One young family came in with eleven fish! The fish and wildlife fish counter guy had his hands full as there were so many people catching so many fish. I've never seen anything like it. I did not fish. I drove by another lake and it was the same story. One guy said he had a hard time keeping his line in the water. I ended up fishing at Pass Lake.. Just a couple of boats out on the water, doing what we always do. But opening day on a stocker lake was surely a fun thing to see.
 
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Not actually opening day on the lake I fished today, but the truck trout were deeply and profoundly abused by the kids today. They dropped several thousand this week, and we definitely would have caught them all, but the kids had quite enough of reeling them in after a few hours, so we went home.
 
Did my annual past the weekend opener stocker trip with a buddy to a favorite put and take lake.
Only four other boats on the lake besides us and a few bank anglers. A guy came in and told us the fish he kept were full of snails.
My buddy started out with a boobie and I started out with a brown leech. After a few fish each we deployed the indicators. Birds were working and some large chironomids were hatching. The bobber went down a lot and the fishing got better in the afternoon.
We caught fish from 6” to 16”. It was a fun day on the water. My best bug was a size 12 pink lady.
Funny story. Earlier my leader got messed up somehow. Since we were fishing for stockers, I didn’t bother fixing it. As I was lifting a fish out of the water to release it, my leader snapped between my two flies. Fast forward a couple hours and look who shows up again and gave me my fly back. 😂
SF

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Fished on Sunday, needed to break in my new raft 😁. First lake I didn't do nearly as well as I did opening week last year there, the fish just didn't seem very active, but it was also quite cold in the AM. Packed up and moved a mile down the road and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the stockers. I was the only boat on both lakes on opening weekend, not bad. I am a pretty piss poor lake fisherman but interestingly Lake #1 I didn't pick up anything on a trolled wooly bugger, and on my leech/chiro bobber rig I only got fish on the chironomid. Lake #2 the fish hammered the trolled wooly bugger and only ate the leech on the bobber rig 🤷‍♂️. Also picked off one of the few mondos dumped in Lake #2. I watched it swim under my raft, flipped the indicator rig out ahead of it and the indicator went down. True sight fishing! Fought like a wet towel but fun to have a little weight on the end of the line, ha. Lake #2 also had some cutthroat which was a nice bonus.

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Hooked up twice, in 10 minutes on a black mohair leach with an orange bead at Lake Tye today, about 11am.. no pictures, but they were standard stocked fish. The bigger of the two was about 14" or so.. I was trying different flies for the MayFly event we have this upcoming Saturday morning. I was told by another fly fisher in a boat that dark green flies were the key for success.. I'll tie up a few tomorrow morning!20260428_123251.jpg20260428_124755.jpg20260428_123148.jpg
 
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