Nymphs Trout
Trout fishing with dry flies in lake.?
OK, I’m new to Fly fishing and have fished lakes for Bluegill and Bass. I’ve also fished rivers for Trout. Now I have to new one. The Department of Conservation is going to release Rainbow Trout in 6 lakes close to my house for a Winter Fishing Program. Three of the lakes are for Fly Fishing only. Pretty Cool! Anyway how to you go about fishing lakes for Trout? Can I use dry flies like I do in rivers? How do you fish a dry fly in still water? Should I go with a streamer like a woolly bugger and not use a dry fly? Float a nymph or glo ball under a strike indicator?
Yeah, this sounds like a great program — stocked rainbows in a fly-fishing only lake!? Please tell me where!
In any case, yes, you can fish stillwater with dries, nymphs, streamers, and other flies. Most of the forage available in a trout stream is found in lakes, and many prey items may be more abundant in a lake. There are just a couple things you have to consider.
First, in stillwater, trout have a chance to be more selective and skeptical, so you’ve got to sharpen up when it comes to matching the hatch. You can understand why. The fish can swim up to your fly, check it out, sniff it, consult his friends about it, etc., before deciding whether to hit it. The fly really has to look right.
Second, you’ve got more water to cover — it’s much more difficult to decide where to fish in a lake, especially if there is no obvious rise or hatch. This is probably going to work best from a canoe or boat. Even when fish are rising close to shore, I have more success casting into shore from the water than casting from the shore or wading.
So, the first approach is matching the hatch and casting to rising fish. When you do this on a quick-moving stream, you match the fly more or less and you hopefully catch fish. You can sometimes get lazy on your presentation, too — you can sloppily whip down the fly 10 feet upstream from the fish you’re casting to and let the fly drift down. On a lake, you have to up your game. You have to match the presentation — if the hatch makes little rings on the water, you’ve have to make the same rings. If the hatch doesn’t disturb the surface, neither can you. When casting to rising fish, place your fly in rise rings or between two rise rings if possible. Trout hate to move too far for food, so if they see meals in the place, they’ll often turn around and take the next meal. Start with the water closest to you and move outward — don’t scare away fish that are 15 feet away by casting to risers 40 feet away. If you see obvious refusals, change flies. Try different sizes, colors, and patterns. Try emerger and nymph patterns — try a dry with a nymph dropper, or a dry with an emerger point fly. Try two dries of slightly different color, size, or whatever. Be creative.
If there is no surface action, things are more difficult. In a stream, fish hold in place and watch for forage to come to them on the current. In a lake, trout have to patrol, moving in circuits around the lake, hunting for food. If you observe carefully you can see this happening, especially if you have waders or if you can get out in the water. You can spot trout moving past, the same direction every time. What you want to do is imitate the prey items the trout are likely to find — scuds, crawfish, bait fish, leeches, wind-downed insects, etc. Get down in the water and try to determine what’s available. Kick the weeds and turn over rocks. An aquarium net is good for finding what’s there. Match the forage you find. With scud nymphs and baitfish streamers, give the fly some action, stripping it across the trout’s line of travel in a way that’s realistic. Panicked baitfish move quick and far. Scuds move more slowly. With leaches, you can dead drift. A strike indicator is handy here, but you can also use a big, buoyant fly like a hopper, or beetle. And if you’re going to hang a nymph under a strike indicator, might as well hang two — for instance, a big Bunny Leech with a tiny nymph dropper, or a black Woolly Bugger with light-colored Hare’s Ear dropper. On big lakes you can use three flies (or more?). Again, get creative, don’t get stuck on a single fly, presentation, or area.
On last thing. Lakes and ponds will often hatch out very small midges, and they’ll hatch every few days all through the year from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. These will be tiny flies, but you can imitate their mating clumps with #18-22 Griffith’s Gnats. I have found this method to be VERY productive in winter (on rivers and lakes) when other forage gets scarce. Such flies are hard to tie on, hard to see, and hard to set, but fish them enough and you’ll get the hang of it. I usually just cast out and can’t see exactly where the fly is, but I just pull on any nearby rise. Even wild browns will fall for a very small fly — seems like the smaller the forage, the easier it is to fool the fish.
All right… I’ve rambled long enough. Hope you have some success. Good luck and tight lines to you!
San Juan River big trout nymph fishing Feb 2009
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