Tried a new lake for me up in north central Washington this past Thursday. If you've been there, you'll probably recognize the lake from my photo. That fog is ice fog, which coats everything with ice. It was very cold out there, especially with a brisk east wind! The water temperature has cooled down to a chilly 44 to 45 degrees F and the water had about 4 to 5 feet of visibility. Only saw one other fisherman out there, but he didn't stay long. Although I didn't see a single fish rise in 6 hours of fishing, the fish turned out to be fairly cooperative once I figured out where they were hanging out.
About a third of the fish were very silvery with few spots, like this one, reminding me of the Pennask strain up in BC:
The other rainbows had more normal spotting like this one:
The fish were very good fighters and jumpers. Had one fish that jumped 5 times. About 80% looked like they had never been caught before. Even though I didn't catch any huge fish that this lake is reputed to have, these medium-sized fish were a lot of fun to catch. No fish were retained, so I don't know what the fish were eating. I'm guessing they are eating scuds or glassworms to be as chunky as most of them were, although I didn't see any scuds in the shallows. For that matter, I didn't see any insects at all.
As usual, I was casting and stripping, mostly a small, silver beadhead, black Simi Seal leech pattern, although I don't think the fish were very selective on this outing. I found most of the fish in water depths of about 3 to 12 feet. The takes were solid and definite.
If you can tolerate the cold temperatures, there is still some good fishing to be had before winter sets in.
Rex
Inevitably, they yell back, "We are wussies!" 
As long as there isn't a sheet of ice on the surface of the lake, I say it is fishable.
