I had posted this on WFF, but will repeat it here for any westsiders... (and to test out photo uploading)
Had a beautiful winter day for fly fishing on one of our small western WA suburban lakes (if you've been there I'm sure you'll recognize it from this photo). So nice to see some sunshine and not much wind. However, for the first few hours I couldn't buy a hit. I'm guessing it was because the air temperature was colder than the water temperature (which was 44 to 45 degrees). Finally found some cooperative fish in the mid-afternoon; 1 rainbow and 8 cutthroats landed and released in the 14 to 19 inch range. They were all thin and dark in their spawning coloration, like this one:
Those cutthroats didn't fight very much either, so I'm guessing that they are broodstock cutts that were planted about a month ago. But, catching anything is better than getting skunked. All the fish were hooked using a BH Black/Red Simi Seal Leech stripped in near the bottom in 16 to 17 feet of water. The key for me seemed to be getting the fly within 6 inches of the bottom as those fish seemed to be hugging the bottom, at least it seemed that way from what I could see on my fish finder. But, one of the other guys was catching some fish using chironomid pupa under a strike indicator, so there is more than one way to catch fish at this lake. He had the patience of Job to stare at the strike indicator for long periods of time without a takedown, a lot more patience than me.
Rex
Had a beautiful winter day for fly fishing on one of our small western WA suburban lakes (if you've been there I'm sure you'll recognize it from this photo). So nice to see some sunshine and not much wind. However, for the first few hours I couldn't buy a hit. I'm guessing it was because the air temperature was colder than the water temperature (which was 44 to 45 degrees). Finally found some cooperative fish in the mid-afternoon; 1 rainbow and 8 cutthroats landed and released in the 14 to 19 inch range. They were all thin and dark in their spawning coloration, like this one:
Those cutthroats didn't fight very much either, so I'm guessing that they are broodstock cutts that were planted about a month ago. But, catching anything is better than getting skunked. All the fish were hooked using a BH Black/Red Simi Seal Leech stripped in near the bottom in 16 to 17 feet of water. The key for me seemed to be getting the fly within 6 inches of the bottom as those fish seemed to be hugging the bottom, at least it seemed that way from what I could see on my fish finder. But, one of the other guys was catching some fish using chironomid pupa under a strike indicator, so there is more than one way to catch fish at this lake. He had the patience of Job to stare at the strike indicator for long periods of time without a takedown, a lot more patience than me.
Rex
