Getting near the lake, I had this good view of some snow-capped mountains. Beautiful country!
Those of you who have been there will probably recognize the lake from this photo, but not every day do you get horse-drawn, covered wagons rolling by the lake, sort of like a re-enactment of the pioneers on the Oregon Trail. The guy in the pram had to stop fishing to take a video. Pretty cool!
This lake produced a lot of action, but mostly smaller fish, as you can see from my chart below (measuring from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail). However, they fought well for their size and were fun to catch. This time they were all rainbows, whereas 4 years ago, I mostly caught Tiger trout, but the chart then was skewed more towards the 14 to 16 inch range.
I found most of the fish on the shallow shoals or near the edges in water about 3 to 4 feet deep. A non-descript gray Muskrat Nymph in sizes 10 and 12 worked best for me, although I don't think the fish were very particular. I think they were taking that nymph for a scud. I later tried my T-Waterboatman pattern, and for the time I fished it, I got just as much action, so go figure...
At the boat launch, there were lots of these small violet-blue butterflies (Boisduval's Blue, I think). I think they were drinking water, or collecting salt or minerals for their diet. When the horses stopped to get a drink of water, they stirred up the gravel and mud, and that attracted 4 times as many butterflies as seen in this photo:
Anyway, it was a nice day, with highs around 78 degrees and water temp around 60. The water visibility was about 8 feet.
Sometimes, it is nice to have some easy fishing where the fish are very cooperative. But you have to have the tougher days too, to keep the universe in balance.
Rex
