Fished a popular fly fishing only seep lake on Thursday that most of you have probably fished before (this was my 31st outing to this lake). I just thought I'd check it out since I haven't fished it yet this year. Surprisingly I had the lake to myself all day. The water temperature was 68 to 70 degrees, so getting to be borderline for safely fishing for rainbows. The wind was mostly calm, which made it easier for the mosquitoes to find you; had to apply insect repellent at the end of the day for the hike back.
The fishing seemed to be tougher than expected, possibly due to the incoming rainstorm. Based on the number of fish I was spotting down deep, I fully expected to have a 30 to 40 fish day, but as you can see from the chart above, it wasn't nearly as productive as I was thinking it would be. The quality of the fish was somewhat disappointing, as almost all the fish were on the thin side, about half were slightly dark, and almost all fought fairly average with only one 17 incher putting up a quality fight. Here's a photo of the best looking rainbow of the day:
For a fly fishing lake, I sure would like to see better quality fishing, something I haven't seen at this lake in a long time. I've recommended to the fisheries biologists that we try the Dry Falls experiment here by cutting the planting rate by half to see if that might improve the quality of the fishing. It might make it tougher to find fish, but hopefully the fish will be a lot huskier and better fighters, like the Dry Falls fish. Then again, this lake might be different, as in 2014, the planting rate was reduced from 3,400 fry (including browns and Tigers) to 1,200 fry, and I don't think that massive reduction made any difference in the quality of the fishery in the years after 2014. Every lake is different and who knows what will happen at this lake. But, it seems to me that it is an experiment worth trying for a few years to see what happens. It costs nothing, other than maybe some complaints from fly fishermen who find the fishing tougher than it has been. But don't you expect tougher fishing at a quality lake? I'm all for quality over quantity.
Rex
