Hiked into another small seep lake yesterday (you might recognize the lake from this photo if you've fished it). I haven't fished this lake in 10 years, so it was nice to give it another try. I was the only one fishing this lake all day (which is good if you like solitude, like I do). In 4 previous outings to this lake, I've only had one really good outing, and mostly caught smaller fish the other outings. You just never know what you're going to find in these seep lakes. This time, the fishing was quite good; the fish were nice-sized, chunky, great fighters and some were jumpers (had one that jumped 7 times!).
All the measurements I take are with the Measure Net to reduce handling. The length is measured from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail.
Last week, at another lake, I was finding fish 16' down, even over deep water. This time I was finding fish 6' down, even over water that was 30' deep. Not sure why the fish were at that particular depth, but it is what it is. I just use the count-down method to find the fish, somewhat complicated by also varying the retrieve speed and style. Same fly pattern as last week, a SBH Olive Simi Seal Leech, although I don't think the particular fly pattern was that important. I just chose that fly pattern because it worked last week, and I had it left out drying so it was easy to access without having to open a fly box. The small fish were surprisingly absent for unknown reasons. Almost all of the rainbows were very silvery like this one:
Only one rainbow was a little dark, but it was the fattest one:
There was a decent chironomid hatch in the early afternoon for a couple of hours. I must have seen at least four dozen fish rise during that time. I probably could have caught more fish if I'd have fished chironomids, but I only go to the dark side as a last resort. I think you chironomiders would have cleaned up at this lake, at least during the hatch. I was getting enough action casting and stripping to keep me entertained.
Rex
