A real gem

I spent Monday and Tuesday at a sparkling gem of a central Oregon lake. I decided to take out my Hobie Passport instead of the drift boat, and oh boy do I like that think for fly fishing lakes. I’m gonna have to invest in one of the collapsible lean bars to stand and cast.

Anyway, I tied on a black bunny leech and on my second cast…. BAM! I big old brown that put up a great fight. I figured that a fish on the second cast is either a good omen or a total disaster. It was the latter.

I fished pretty hard both days but it was very very slow. I had a few more half assed grabs on the bunny leach. I tried stripping callibaetis nymphs, scuds, chironomids. Tried the indicator game. Nothing! A few people were getting in to some fish, but it was tough out there for everyone.

But I can’t complain too much. I caught a gorgeous brown and had two gorgeous days at one of the prettiest lakes I know. Success!

 

[Brian in OR.]

Nice fish, did you primarily fish the south end? Were there any hatches coming off?

 

[dbaken]

Thanks for the report, pig of a brown! Thinking about fishing that gem of a lake on Friday.

 

[Travis Bille]

Nice fish, did you primarily fish the south end? Were there any hatches coming off?

Yes, I was down at the Southeast side. I heard the SW side was pretty dead too.

I saw a few midges and a few callibaetis but nothing significant. I talked to a guy who was doing very well on very small scuds, like size 18-20. Bring some of those!

 

[Para_Adams]

I was fishing the lakes closer to Sunriver two weeks ago and they were mostly very slow as well. It was hot, sunny, mostly calm and very smokey...it felt like some clouds and cool wet weather were needed to get 'em going.

 

[SurfnFish]

I was fishing the lakes closer to Sunriver two weeks ago and they were mostly very slow as well. It was hot, sunny, mostly calm and very smokey...it felt like some clouds and cool wet weather were needed to get 'em going.

those lakes always fish better with a bit of wind chop, otherwise the fish remain overly cautious. When the surface is glassy,
indicator fishing midges is usually more effective than stripping. My fave set-up in glass is a size 10 purple Chubby with a size 20 Dark Assassin dangling below on 5' of tippet. Whereas the midge get's most of the takes, when the Chubby does gets pounced on it's usually by a bigger fish.

 

[Para_Adams]

those lakes always fish better with a bit of wind chop, otherwise the fish remain overly cautious. When the surface is glassy,
indicator fishing midges is usually more effective than stripping. My fave set-up in glass is a size 10 purple Chubby with a size 20 Dark Assassin dangling below on 5' of tippet. Whereas the midge get's most of the takes, when the Chubby does gets pounced on it's usually by a bigger fish.

Most of my success was with similar flies...a #10 black foam beetle and a #18 black chironomid. I also did well with a simple callibaetis emerger about 10" off my beetle floating side by side. It was interesting to see the takes start on the beetle, then phase over to the emerger as a sparse hatch ramped up, then phase back to the beetle after about 45 minutes. Fun!