Last Friday, I decided to go solo at my favorite lake. It had been probably two weeks since the last time, and that day was pretty good. This time was better!
Got in the water around 9:30. There were at least two others who beat me in. Given the success of the red-bead Carey Special (not an Olive Willy tie and Intermediate line), I decided to skip experimenting with new ties and got down to business, working clockwise around the lake from the boat launch.
Fairly soon, I got into the fish. The first few were around 14.5” with one at 15”. All nice fighters. Some were caught casting close to shoreline with vegetation and retrieving past docks, but what was constant was how shallow the fish were holding. My guess was at around maybe 4ft? There were also trout rising nearly all day until the middle of the afternoon.
Okay. The trout were quite eager. At one point, I put my rod in its holder and pulled out my iPhone to do some foreign language lessons on the Duolingo app. Just blindly slow kicking around. It was as if I was trying to eat a sandwich while fishing. Out of near a half-dozen strikes, you lose 2/3. And this was well within 10 to 15 minutes. Just annoying!
As I worked my way around closer to the east end, the number of strikes slowed down. That might have been because I was more trying to make time to the far end than target possible habitat.
The weedy shallows at the east end of the lake has always held my interest for a number of reasons. It used to not be as weedy, and I could count on finding Browns there. Not so much anymore. What I did find was one surprisingly large Black Crappie. At least I think it was one. Very deep but narrow body, tiny mouth. Sorry no picture. But that fish reminded me to move to where I couldn’t see the weeds.
By then, it was past Noon, and time to work my way back—with at least some haste along the southern shore. Of course, that’s when I couldn’t keep the fish off. I’m trying to make time by kicking fin moderately strong and doing the strip-release with my intermediate line. Brought to hand a good number of recently planted rainbows at around 12”. There were a few shaded spots I was curious to see if they held fish, so I casted into there. Only surprisingly smaller trout. Nothing more than 12”.
Further along I went westward, the wind started picking up from behind my back. At the same time, more trout were striking. While fun, every time I stopped to net and unhook a fish, I’d loose almost all the distance I gained, due to the wind. It got to the point where I would try to play the fish a little but see if it could toss the hook. It was already 2:00 and I thought I’d be done an hour before.
So It was maybe 200 ft from where I planned to make my turn for the boat launch, and fly line is telegraph-tapping a message from someone with a big thumb. Figuring that I was not that far from my turning point, I decided to slow down a lot and slowly strip line in. That was when I got the message.
16 inches of trouty goodness! Uhh… not the best picture for verification, as you can’t see the number at the nose. Sorry, but one has to keep the fish wet as much as possible.
I managed to catch only a few more by the time I bailed. Basically, the bite died out around 2:30. By then, I guess I brought to hand between 10 to 12 rainbows. Where the Browns and the every mysterious cutthroats are, I still don’t know. Overall, my best day of fishing this year.
Got in the water around 9:30. There were at least two others who beat me in. Given the success of the red-bead Carey Special (not an Olive Willy tie and Intermediate line), I decided to skip experimenting with new ties and got down to business, working clockwise around the lake from the boat launch.
Fairly soon, I got into the fish. The first few were around 14.5” with one at 15”. All nice fighters. Some were caught casting close to shoreline with vegetation and retrieving past docks, but what was constant was how shallow the fish were holding. My guess was at around maybe 4ft? There were also trout rising nearly all day until the middle of the afternoon.
Okay. The trout were quite eager. At one point, I put my rod in its holder and pulled out my iPhone to do some foreign language lessons on the Duolingo app. Just blindly slow kicking around. It was as if I was trying to eat a sandwich while fishing. Out of near a half-dozen strikes, you lose 2/3. And this was well within 10 to 15 minutes. Just annoying!
As I worked my way around closer to the east end, the number of strikes slowed down. That might have been because I was more trying to make time to the far end than target possible habitat.
The weedy shallows at the east end of the lake has always held my interest for a number of reasons. It used to not be as weedy, and I could count on finding Browns there. Not so much anymore. What I did find was one surprisingly large Black Crappie. At least I think it was one. Very deep but narrow body, tiny mouth. Sorry no picture. But that fish reminded me to move to where I couldn’t see the weeds.
By then, it was past Noon, and time to work my way back—with at least some haste along the southern shore. Of course, that’s when I couldn’t keep the fish off. I’m trying to make time by kicking fin moderately strong and doing the strip-release with my intermediate line. Brought to hand a good number of recently planted rainbows at around 12”. There were a few shaded spots I was curious to see if they held fish, so I casted into there. Only surprisingly smaller trout. Nothing more than 12”.
Further along I went westward, the wind started picking up from behind my back. At the same time, more trout were striking. While fun, every time I stopped to net and unhook a fish, I’d loose almost all the distance I gained, due to the wind. It got to the point where I would try to play the fish a little but see if it could toss the hook. It was already 2:00 and I thought I’d be done an hour before.
So It was maybe 200 ft from where I planned to make my turn for the boat launch, and fly line is telegraph-tapping a message from someone with a big thumb. Figuring that I was not that far from my turning point, I decided to slow down a lot and slowly strip line in. That was when I got the message.
16 inches of trouty goodness! Uhh… not the best picture for verification, as you can’t see the number at the nose. Sorry, but one has to keep the fish wet as much as possible.
I managed to catch only a few more by the time I bailed. Basically, the bite died out around 2:30. By then, I guess I brought to hand between 10 to 12 rainbows. Where the Browns and the every mysterious cutthroats are, I still don’t know. Overall, my best day of fishing this year.
