Another good place to try is around any structures that provide cover. Even when trout aren't feeding, they will often hang out around jumbles of rock, sunken brush, weed beds and the like, and they generally won't be too lazy to grab the odd nymph that happens by. Trout may also be cruising lazily in the neighborhood of structures, giving the angler the advantage of having his fish confined to a relatively small area. Always keep an eye on offshore structures for the quiet, solitary riser. But let's assume you've scouted the shallows, worked the stream inlets and outlets, and cast to the offshore structures with no success. An hour or two has gone by and it's possible that things have changed-things do change on high lakes, often and quickly-but chances are you're finally ready to work the deep water over the dropoff shelf.
You're looking for fish that are either cruising the deeper water or who are just suspended, waiting for the proper weather, time of day, a bug hatch, or whatever it is that trout wait for at such times. In any case, the best tactic is to wade out until you can reach the deep water with an easy cast and start searching with a weighted nymph. It's best to start relatively shallow and work deeper, using a slow retrieve first and then a faster one. The sharpest dropoffs are often the best, but the gentle slopes can be good too. If there are different kinds of habitat, work one for a reasonable amount of time-until you're satisfied that if fish are there, they've seen your fly-then try the other. If there's a weed bed on an otherwise rocky bottom, try that first. A steep dropoff near a stream inlet is also a good shot.
So far, we've been fishing with a floating line and a weighted nymph on a long leader. For deeper water you can add a split shot or two to your leader for greater depth, but a rig like that is horrible to try and cast any distance. Better yet, go to a sink-tip line. A sink-tip will go down faster than even a weighted nymph, so it's best to use a short leader to keep the fly as deep as the line-maybe even as short as two feet.
There are always exceptions in trout fishing that's why we stay interested.
|
I like a fairly large nymph for this kind Of work, a size 10 or 12, and I try not to change patterns or sizes until I've given the fly I'm using every chance to produce. I'm convinced that in most high lake situations it's not the specific fly pattern that makes the difference, but where and how it's fished. This kind of fishing is slow, even tedious, if you're not in the mood for it, but it can sometimes yield big fish (though seldom on a regular basis). If you decide to take a pass on this, take a nap, or a lunch break and wait for something more exciting to happen, I'll forgive you.
Now, having made a case for fishing nondescript wet flies over nonselective trout in the high lakes, I'll devote some space to the exceptions. There are always exceptions in trout fishing that's why we stay interested.
Selectivity usually happens when a lot of one kind of insect is available and, though this is the exception on most high country lakes, it's far from unheard of. What insects and other food forms you find in a mountain lake will depend on dozens of factors including water chemistry, bottom composition, elevation, mean summer water temperatures, vegetation, and so on. Midges are common, as are mayflies, caddis flies, and freshwater shrimp (scuds), and you may even find damsel and dragonflies, aquatic beetles, water fleas, and leeches.
I know of a lake (a small pond, really) in Colorado's Roosevelt National Forest that gives up good hatches of various species of midges, mayflies, and caddis which are backed up by large numbers of dragonfly and damselfly nymphs and aquatic beetles. It seems more like a bass pond than a trout lake-it's that rich-but it's above 10,000 feet. The trout are typically opportunistic when the insect activity is slow, but during heavy hatches and spinner falls (which are common through midsummer and into the fall), they can become maddeningly selective. The brook trout, as you'd expect, are quite large. I think I know of a five-pounder that came out of that lake, but the man who caught it has never really admitted that was the place. Fair enough.
When you come on selectively rising fish in a high lake, regardless of the hatch or the pattern you're using, you'll be faced with the same problem you had with visible cruisers in shallow water: you have to put the fly where the fish is going to be, not where he just was. Leading fish can be difficult when you can see them, but when you're dealing only with rise forms, it can be downright frustrating. However, if you spot the rise of a big fish you think is worth singling out from the crowd, give a little time to figuring out what his pattern is, then lead him with your cast and an educated guess. If all else fails, cast two feet to one side or the other of a good rise and hope he's going in that direction.
If you're like me, you'll guess wrong better than 50 percent of the time.
A number of very competent high lake anglers will tell you that streamers don't work in these waters because the trout aren't likely to eat other fish and because there are no forage fish anyway. But I've caught too many high lake fish on streamers to leave them out of this discussion. Most were brookies, some were rainbows, and a few were even cutthroats. In fact, fishing a streamer is sometimes a good way to eliminate the little fish and hook some of the big ones.
© Article copyright Pruett Publishing.
Powered by Trip.com
