Been a busy spring, haven't gotten out much. I fished a well know Central Wahington Lake today.
I mostly fish moving water, but have been trying some stillwater stuff the past couple years and finding a little success, along with really enjoying it. The past couple years I just went from shore, but over the winter I pulled my float tube out of the storage unit.
Today was the first day I've had the thing out in a dozen years (maybe more?!). Its an old Outcast Fat Cat. I bought myself an NRS Chinook life Vest over the winter as well, and wore that today. Super comfortable, glad I had it on for peace of mind. I had also pumped the tube up over the winter and let it sit overnight to see if it had any leaks, which it did not. I did notice that it deflated just a tad while I was on the water, but I think that was an air/water temp thing cause while it deflated just a bit, it didn't seem to continue to do so (i.e. it deflated a little, but then seemed to stay at that level). I had also bought myself some backpack straps for it, and of course thought I put them in one of the pockets, but I left those at home. Will look forward to those for the next hike in, as the handle/hands thing was a little annoying/uncomfortable. I'm curious what folks do when hiking in. I wore waders with my wading boots on, and then when I got to the water, took the boots off and threw them in the storage area behind the seat and put the fins on. Boots just floated around with me all day, which was fine. I just wonder if there is another way people do that? Anyways, all in all, getting to and from the water seemed to work fine other than the backpack strap thing.
The forecast called for light showers around 2PM, and some wind about that time as well. I got on the water at 11AM and took off at 2PM.
Alright, on to the fishing. I brought two rods with me. I set up a 9' 4wt. With an intermediate line for trolling. I had a brown leech with a olive willy behind it on that one for trolling. I also brought a 10' 5 wt. With an indicator on it, but didn't rig anything up hoping that the trolling would work. When I got to the water, it just started to sprinkle, so I swapped my cotton hoody for a light, non-waterproof jacket. I talked with a guy who was fishing around the put in. He had said he killed it last week, but hadn't caught a single fish today. That didn't make me feel super confident, as I am still learning the stillwater thing and he looked like he knew what he was doing. I kicked out and started trolling around for about a half hour with 0 success, not even a tick. I saw the guy I was talking to paddle to the launch and call it a day. At this point the sprinkle turned into full on rain, but the winds were still calm. I was a little concerned about the wind with this being my first time in a tube in a long ass time, so my goal was to stay reasonable close to the launch. There were 2 guys on the east side of the lake that had parked their pontoons there and were out wading the entire time I was fishing...couldn't tell if they were having success or not, but they never left. The guy that left had been fishing a spot to the west of the launch, so I figured I would go check that out.
At this point I decided the trolling wasn't working, so I thought I would try the indicator thing. This is the method I'd had success from the shore with, but that was always a guessing game on the depth. After reading so much information from all of you members here, and despite my nervousness about losing a perfectly good pair of hemostats, I went with that method. I found a slight outcropping, hooked my hemo's to some 4X flouro, and let it spool till it hit the bottom. I wound back onto the spool 2 feet, and then cut that piece off and tied on the tippet just below where I would anchor my indicator (i would guess it was about 10 feet under the indicator). Then I tied on a jigged vampire leech, and to the eye of that hook a chironimid on about 1 foot of 4X flouro (I ran out of 5X, need to stock the float tube!). I kicked back about 15 feet, and cast the indicator rig back out to about where I measured the depth. Within about 15 seconds I'm watching the indicator start to dance a little, and I really couldn't believe it would happen that fast, and then all the sudden it went all the way under, so I set the hook. Bam, fish on! And it's fighting pretty good! I brought a nice 14" rainbow to the net. For the next 2 hours it was literally every cast, indicator down, fish on. I would say 50% were on the chironomid and 50% were on the leech. Seemed like the bigger fish preferred the leech. It was pouring rain at this point, I was soaked, but the fishing was insane good. I caught over 20 fish in the 10 - 16" range all in that one area. Then I was sopping wet, and the wind started to pick up so it was time to head back to the launch.
Some pics (it was wet, so they aren't great, and I try not to take too many hero shots). I also need to get a net for my tube:
Apologies for the long report with so much detail. But, I owe all of these fish to this community. I wouldn't have had this success without reading all of your reports and your technique posts. I truly appreciate that you are all so open about how you find success on stillwater, and it obviously helped me to be succesful this day. Hopefully something in here can help someone like myself find some success in the future. Thank you all!!!
I mostly fish moving water, but have been trying some stillwater stuff the past couple years and finding a little success, along with really enjoying it. The past couple years I just went from shore, but over the winter I pulled my float tube out of the storage unit.
Today was the first day I've had the thing out in a dozen years (maybe more?!). Its an old Outcast Fat Cat. I bought myself an NRS Chinook life Vest over the winter as well, and wore that today. Super comfortable, glad I had it on for peace of mind. I had also pumped the tube up over the winter and let it sit overnight to see if it had any leaks, which it did not. I did notice that it deflated just a tad while I was on the water, but I think that was an air/water temp thing cause while it deflated just a bit, it didn't seem to continue to do so (i.e. it deflated a little, but then seemed to stay at that level). I had also bought myself some backpack straps for it, and of course thought I put them in one of the pockets, but I left those at home. Will look forward to those for the next hike in, as the handle/hands thing was a little annoying/uncomfortable. I'm curious what folks do when hiking in. I wore waders with my wading boots on, and then when I got to the water, took the boots off and threw them in the storage area behind the seat and put the fins on. Boots just floated around with me all day, which was fine. I just wonder if there is another way people do that? Anyways, all in all, getting to and from the water seemed to work fine other than the backpack strap thing.
The forecast called for light showers around 2PM, and some wind about that time as well. I got on the water at 11AM and took off at 2PM.
Alright, on to the fishing. I brought two rods with me. I set up a 9' 4wt. With an intermediate line for trolling. I had a brown leech with a olive willy behind it on that one for trolling. I also brought a 10' 5 wt. With an indicator on it, but didn't rig anything up hoping that the trolling would work. When I got to the water, it just started to sprinkle, so I swapped my cotton hoody for a light, non-waterproof jacket. I talked with a guy who was fishing around the put in. He had said he killed it last week, but hadn't caught a single fish today. That didn't make me feel super confident, as I am still learning the stillwater thing and he looked like he knew what he was doing. I kicked out and started trolling around for about a half hour with 0 success, not even a tick. I saw the guy I was talking to paddle to the launch and call it a day. At this point the sprinkle turned into full on rain, but the winds were still calm. I was a little concerned about the wind with this being my first time in a tube in a long ass time, so my goal was to stay reasonable close to the launch. There were 2 guys on the east side of the lake that had parked their pontoons there and were out wading the entire time I was fishing...couldn't tell if they were having success or not, but they never left. The guy that left had been fishing a spot to the west of the launch, so I figured I would go check that out.
At this point I decided the trolling wasn't working, so I thought I would try the indicator thing. This is the method I'd had success from the shore with, but that was always a guessing game on the depth. After reading so much information from all of you members here, and despite my nervousness about losing a perfectly good pair of hemostats, I went with that method. I found a slight outcropping, hooked my hemo's to some 4X flouro, and let it spool till it hit the bottom. I wound back onto the spool 2 feet, and then cut that piece off and tied on the tippet just below where I would anchor my indicator (i would guess it was about 10 feet under the indicator). Then I tied on a jigged vampire leech, and to the eye of that hook a chironimid on about 1 foot of 4X flouro (I ran out of 5X, need to stock the float tube!). I kicked back about 15 feet, and cast the indicator rig back out to about where I measured the depth. Within about 15 seconds I'm watching the indicator start to dance a little, and I really couldn't believe it would happen that fast, and then all the sudden it went all the way under, so I set the hook. Bam, fish on! And it's fighting pretty good! I brought a nice 14" rainbow to the net. For the next 2 hours it was literally every cast, indicator down, fish on. I would say 50% were on the chironomid and 50% were on the leech. Seemed like the bigger fish preferred the leech. It was pouring rain at this point, I was soaked, but the fishing was insane good. I caught over 20 fish in the 10 - 16" range all in that one area. Then I was sopping wet, and the wind started to pick up so it was time to head back to the launch.
Some pics (it was wet, so they aren't great, and I try not to take too many hero shots). I also need to get a net for my tube:
Apologies for the long report with so much detail. But, I owe all of these fish to this community. I wouldn't have had this success without reading all of your reports and your technique posts. I truly appreciate that you are all so open about how you find success on stillwater, and it obviously helped me to be succesful this day. Hopefully something in here can help someone like myself find some success in the future. Thank you all!!!
like many of us lake nerds!
