Peach
Stillwater Fanatic
At the end of April, I returned to a fairly well-known hike in lake in Grant county that I haven’t been to in a while. It was only my third visit to this lake ever and has been 17 years since my last visit. It hasn’t changed at all the past 17 years. Most of you will probably recognize this lake from the pictures.
I have heard that both Browns and I believe Tigers are stocked in the lake and the Browns can grow to be nice sized. It was unknown to me however since I all have caught in the past was Rainbow trout, until this trip.
Beautiful day and the fish were in a cooperative mood, caught about a dozen of these nice 13 inch fish, which were healthy and fought pretty decent for their size, weather was damn near perfect and I was sharing the lake with just one other fly fisherman.
The olive leech pattern with a red bead head I initially put on was working just fine and that is what I caught all of my fish on so far. I was pretty content to this point but I wanted to switch up and decided to switch to a larger streamer pattern to see if it would catch either some bigger rainbows or entice some of the rumored Browns or Tigers that are in the lake.
Well I confirmed that the lake did indeed had said Browns in it with this little guy, caught just a few minutes after I switched to the streamer.
After I released that Brown, I made a cast up against the cattails and almost instantly it gets hit and this second fish had some weight to it. Once it jumped, it confirmed that I had one of those rumored large Brown on my line. After a lengthy fight were this big Brown was just trying to bull dog me into the weeds and the challenge of trying to get it into my too small net, I landed this beautiful fish.
I released this treasure and it kicked away back down into the deepths. I feel fortune to catch this fish since it was in the middle of the afternoon on a bright and sunny day, unusual time for a Brown of that size to be present. So sticking with streamer, big flies = big fish, the next fish I caught was a nice 18 inch Rainbow.
Kept the streamer on for the remaining of the day and it did help me catch the bigger sized Rainbows. Once again content, I hiked out as the sun was starting to set knowing that I will be cooking dinner and setting up a tent by lantern and headlight, but so worth it.
The next day, I get up early and make the drive to DFL. Day 1 was OK – caught a few nice fish but they were not easy. But the quality of these fish at DFL has me returning often. Love this lake, it can be challenging but those large, super healthy Rainbows at the end of the line make it worth it. Next morning I fished DFL for a few hours before I had to head home. Big old skunk for me, but I left with a smile on my face as the overall trip was a huge success.
Peach
I have heard that both Browns and I believe Tigers are stocked in the lake and the Browns can grow to be nice sized. It was unknown to me however since I all have caught in the past was Rainbow trout, until this trip.
Beautiful day and the fish were in a cooperative mood, caught about a dozen of these nice 13 inch fish, which were healthy and fought pretty decent for their size, weather was damn near perfect and I was sharing the lake with just one other fly fisherman.
The olive leech pattern with a red bead head I initially put on was working just fine and that is what I caught all of my fish on so far. I was pretty content to this point but I wanted to switch up and decided to switch to a larger streamer pattern to see if it would catch either some bigger rainbows or entice some of the rumored Browns or Tigers that are in the lake.
Well I confirmed that the lake did indeed had said Browns in it with this little guy, caught just a few minutes after I switched to the streamer.
After I released that Brown, I made a cast up against the cattails and almost instantly it gets hit and this second fish had some weight to it. Once it jumped, it confirmed that I had one of those rumored large Brown on my line. After a lengthy fight were this big Brown was just trying to bull dog me into the weeds and the challenge of trying to get it into my too small net, I landed this beautiful fish.
I released this treasure and it kicked away back down into the deepths. I feel fortune to catch this fish since it was in the middle of the afternoon on a bright and sunny day, unusual time for a Brown of that size to be present. So sticking with streamer, big flies = big fish, the next fish I caught was a nice 18 inch Rainbow.
Kept the streamer on for the remaining of the day and it did help me catch the bigger sized Rainbows. Once again content, I hiked out as the sun was starting to set knowing that I will be cooking dinner and setting up a tent by lantern and headlight, but so worth it.
The next day, I get up early and make the drive to DFL. Day 1 was OK – caught a few nice fish but they were not easy. But the quality of these fish at DFL has me returning often. Love this lake, it can be challenging but those large, super healthy Rainbows at the end of the line make it worth it. Next morning I fished DFL for a few hours before I had to head home. Big old skunk for me, but I left with a smile on my face as the overall trip was a huge success.
Peach
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