The more I fish the less I know

[Northern]

So, just spent a couple days in north central WA with my husband. We kayak fished one lake on Wed and each caught a number of decent trout - he on spinners and I on flies, almost all out in deeper water. Nothing in shallow.

Thursday we hit another lake only a few miles away from the first. No weather change, similar topography.
Husband managed one fish on a dick nite over several hours. Despite marking fish and trying lots of stuff, neither of us caught a single fish in deeper water. On the other hand, I caught dozens on flies - dries, buggers, leeches, a crazy charlie, whatever, but all within 4 feet of shore, along the entire shoreline of the place, from mid morning to early afternoon. I saw no bait being chased, and nothing obvious they were feeding on.
???
So much for figuring trout behavior out!
They were sticking so tight to shore that I started worrying that there was something in the deeper water that they were afraid of

 

[_WW_]

Sometimes fishing is harder to figure out than raising teenagers.

 

[Billy]

As I get older I just enjoy the puzzle more. Good and bad days.

 

[BriGuy]

The frustrating part is that they have tiny little brains -- almost as big as mine. And I still cant seem to catch them.

 

[Stonedfish]

I wonder if maybe there wasn’t some type of food source in the near shore area.
No sure about where you were at, but dragonflies can really be a prevalent food source on some lakes at this time of the year.
Did you see any husks on reeds or rocks?
Sounds like a great time regardless. Great report!
SF

 

[Matt B]

Yeah this is not one of those “Golly gee WTF trout” days where you spend 8 hours fishing hard and catch 1 fish.
Or worse.

 

[Northern]

I wonder if maybe there wasn’t some type of food source in the near shore area.
No sure about where you were at, but dragonflies can really be a prevalent food source on some lakes at this time of the year.
Did you see any husks on reeds or rocks?
Sounds like a great time regardless. Great report!
SF

There must have been something, but not that I was seeing! No adult dragons around, and not a lot of reeds there.
I certainly had fun, but it wasn't great for spinning gear. Plus then he tried to use it as a learning moment by asking me why they'd behave differently on lake A vs lake B. My expert reply was mostly a helpless shrug

 

[Matt B]

There must have been something, but not that I was seeing! No adult dragons around, and not a lot of reeds there.
I certainly had fun, but it wasn't great for spinning gear. Plus then he tried to use it as a learning moment by asking me why they'd behave differently on lake A vs lake B. My expert reply was mostly a helpless shrug

Water quality/chemistry
Species/age assemblage
Springs
Aspect
Fetch
Coriolis force
Moon
Solar flares
Not holding yer mouth right

 

[_WW_]

Water quality/chemistry
Species/age assemblage
Springs
Aspect
Fetch
Coriolis force
Moon
Solar flares
Not holding yer mouth right

You forgot "Should have been here yesterday."

 

[Tobe Hagge]

I wonder if there's a schooling behavior aspect to it. They're less susceptible to predation if they all feed on the surface at the same time, and it's not exactly a survival advantage if the times are predictable.

 

[RCF]

I wonder if maybe there wasn’t some type of food source in the near shore area.
No sure about where you were at, but dragonflies can really be a prevalent food source on some lakes at this time of the year.
Did you see any husks on reeds or rocks?
Sounds like a great time regardless. Great report!
SF

I agree.

I was thinking the same thing about dragonfly nymphs.
Wonders if the lake bottom was different - muddy vs sandy vs rocky vs weedy. That could help explain it...

 

[Triggw]

I think this is especially true in lakes. In a stream, if you're there one day and catch fish in a certain way in a certain kind of place, then you can be pretty confident that if you come back a few days later, things won't have changed much. (Unless the water goes up or drops way down.) In stillwater, though, every day is a new adventure.

 

[SilverFly]

Tuna behavior can be equally unpredictable. Day to day they'll like:

Some/none/all colors.
Big/skinny/short/fat profiles.
Fast/slow/med speeds.
Deep/shallow/way-back/in the propwash/engines on/engines off/early/late/midday/never...

 

[Brute]

The more I know, the more I realize how little I know…

These are words I live by…

 

[Tom Butler]

The more I know, the more I realize how little I know…

These are words I live by…

Me too!

 

[Smalma]

Like Billy I enjoy solving the various "puzzles" that fishing provide us. However, as I have gotten older the more new puzzles I have to solve; I often find I don't remember how I had solved a particular puzzle, so it becomes a "new" to me puzzle -LOL!

I wonder if the difference between the fish behavior in the two lakes at the beginning of this thread could be accounted for by the fall behavior of "scuds". Could the shallow water in the second lake been more suitable (bottom substrate, weed growth, etc.) for scuds attracting the trout to the area. Throat samples might provide additional insights into the trout behavior.

Curt

 

[Northern]

Like Billy I enjoy solving the various "puzzles" that fishing provide us. However, as I have gotten older the more new puzzles I have to solve; I often find I don't remember how I had solved a particular puzzle, so it becomes a "new" to me puzzle -LOL!

I wonder if the difference between the fish behavior in the two lakes at the beginning of this thread could be accounted for by the fall behavior of "scuds". Could the shallow water in the second lake been more suitable (bottom substrate, weed growth, etc.) for scuds attracting the trout to the area. Throat samples might provide additional insights into the trout behavior.

Curt

Oh, no doubt, I enjoy being puzzled - particularly when it's why I'm catching fish one way here and a different way there!

It was interesting on lake B that the fish on the perimeters would eat anything you could get in front of them without snagging up, while the ones marked in deeper water (some of which were rising/swirling at the surface) didn't yield even a bump.

Maybe they divided themselves into feeding shifts and took turns at the shoreline buffet

 

[_WW_]

Did you take any temperature readings?

 

[troutpocket]

I fished two central WA lakes this weekend. Lake 1 was a grind. Fished 10 hours and caught 7 trout. A couple were really nice. Found fish in areas from 3 to 18 feet deep. Some were caught trolling, a few under the indicator, and a couple making casts tight to shore and stripping back. Nothing was consistent. Every take felt random. There were no hatches and not many fish showing. Lake 2 I could see fish showing immediately. I was getting hits trolling across the middle of the lake and ended up dialing in my best indicator bite since early spring (maybe best of the year). Fish were just bitey. Fished 7 hours and lost track of numbers pretty quickly. Was able to anchor and work to feeding fish in 4-12’ of water from 9-1 without moving the boat. Lost the three biggest of the day but sometimes the fish wins. I think this fits into the “every day is different” theory of lakes!

 

[Northern]

Did you take any temperature readings?

If I remember correctly, the second lake was a couple degrees cooler when we launched, but it was earlier and after a chilly night. This was just surface temp from the transducer in the hull of the kayak, and it warmed pretty quickly without a change in behavior.

I guess if I really want to figure it out in the long term, I need to pull my scientist gloves outta retirement and gather data in an organized manner!