The 25th of January was my Mother's 101st birthday, so I went fishing. I headed out to a local stocked lake with a guide [and friend] to fish for planted rainbow trout.
I had been wanting to try a fly there that I acquired a few summers ago, back East, and that I have had pretty good luck with for rainbow trout in still waters. We arrived at the lake around 1000, my rods were set up, and my float tube mostly inflated, so it only took a few minutes to get on the water. At this time of year, that lake is mostly about stripping Wooly Buggers, and so I had one on an Intermediate Sink line, on my 6 weight, and because I am a hopeless optimist, I had a #18 BWO Spotlight Emerger on a floating line on a 5 weight with me. There were a very few splashy rises happening.
I kicked away from shore a few yards, and laid out some line with the Wooly Bugger to start stripping. I had got the Bugger almost all the way back in, when there was a rise about thirty feet in front of me. I set down the 6 weight, picked up the 5 weight, stripped out, and cast in the general vicinity of the rise. No one responded, so I cast a little off to one side, hoping for some interest. As I started to pick up the dry for a third cast, I noticed that the 6 weight tip was dancing around a good bit, so I dropped the 5 weight, snatched up the 6 weight, and lifted. The response was a head shake and a run. Now I have the dry fly out about thirty feet, and a decent feeling trout running around in circles, and I am thinking "Oh Lord, this is going to be the Mother of all Tangles" then the fish swung off to the right, away from the dry, and I had a chance to let the reel fight the fish while I one-handedly stripped in the dry fly.
After a decent fight, I brought the fish to hand. It was an eighteen and one half inch rainbow trout, in really good shape, even if a bit annoyed. I snapped a quick picture, released the fish, and reeled up my 5 weight and dry fly.
My next fish was not long in coming, I was kicking along a shade line giving the fly a twitch-twitch-pause big strip , pause, repeat, when I got a light hit, but no hook up. I stripped out a few more feet of line and flipped it into the water, letting the fly sink. I was rewarded by a solid hit, a hookup, a nice fight [complete with jumps], and a twenty two inch [measured] rainbow. I got a decent picture of it while I was fighting it, and then my camera gave me the dreaded 'Battery out' signal as I took the first landed picture. I was some annoyed, as I had put in a new battery that morning, but I released the fish and helped him breathe before releasing him. Nice fish! I removed the battery and reseated it, and got a green go signal, but I was a bit wary.
I had a four o'clock appointment, so had to leave about two [okay, I lasted until two twenty....] to be home in time.
I fished just about three and a half hours, and fished the same pattern except for the last fifteen minutes when my buddy insisted that I try a Muddler that he was getting fish on. I got my last fish on the Muddler at about 2:18.
All told, I landed twenty one fish, on twenty four hookups and probably thirty five tugs. Two 12", two 15", 3 over twenty inches, the rest between 16 and 20, mostly 18 or 19". A fine winter day fishing.
Favoured: 0
