OK. So yesterday I have "one of those days" that makes stillwater fishing so much fun. Out on my big, deep, clear lake in a nice westerly breeze. Water is now mid-60's, air was the same. Overcast. Recall this lakes routinely gives me fits with blanks or 1 and 2 fish outings.

Shove-off at just after 0900 and notice drakes on the water and some fish working them. Looking harder I see that the drakes are emerging-this is typically a late evening hatch.

Set up a drift in the margins and fish are rising about frequently but sporadicly. I assume panfish. 3 dries on 4X and I am quickly into fish--recently stocked fish with what I think are a few holdovers mixed in. Cool! 10-13 inch fish are fine with me. The #7 bounces quite a few of them--dammit! Should I go to the #6 TFO????

I pretty quickly start to feel that this is less than the best set-up because the fish are rising so haphazardly it is hard to cover them. Casting blind has only taken one fish. I think the stocking pods are still together and when they pass the fishing dries up. So, I switch to 3 nymphs and keep my floating line. Again, once I encounter a pod I hit some fish then it passes. I also begin to notice the rising has really slowed although I still see ample duns. But what I do not see are emerging bugs.

Thinking the fish, at least the better fish, have gone deeper (or were always deeper since I did not touch a good fish at all in the past few hours) maybe taking deeper nymphs or emerging chiro pupae, I start working my flies on sunk lines. Nothing is happening as I go deeper and deeper to the point of working a vertical retrieve with my Di7.

I go back my Type 3 to try and cover lots of water and retrieves. Looking out into the chop something catches my eye. A rise? Swirl? Not sure--just something odd. As I look harder upwind of the disturbance I see it! What I detected was the dorsal and tail fins of a small pod of holdover rainbows slicing through the water's surface between the wave crests! AhA!

I pick up and cast ahead of them on a short line and basically use my rod to pull the flies in front of the fish and I am in!! This was a solid 20" bow. I pump here and immediately I switch back to the floater.

I begin to hit fish pretty consistent--mostly all holdovers. What I notice though was that the fish all came early into the retrieve. Nothing beyond the first few moments even when I saw fish in the area. Too deep!!!!!! I do hit some stockers over shallower water and using a much faster retrieve. My drift was from shallow to deep on the lee side of the lake.

Next change was to go to a washing line with a DHE on point. From then on it was fish at least every 5 minutes--all holdovers with the smallest being 16". Good thing I stayed with the #7 but a #8 would have been better still! One fish, a 22" male of about 5 pounds, had me well into my backing and behind the boat in no time.

My finest outing on that lake to date on various levels. Yeah, I caught nice fish but I was really happy with my observations and decisions. What is bugging me now is how long it took me to figure things out.


Now: Davy, 1fly, others with stillwater experience. That course of progression took me about 4 hours. As you know from competition that is 1-hour too long and the last 30-45 minutes is where I really did the most damage with the WL rig. I am now certain the holdovers were up the entire time and I feel strongly that they were cruising the chop taking nymphs and drowned duns as opposed to feeding off the top. For sure I now have this bank of knowledge to fall back on but my question is this:

When you are in searching mode, how big of a step up or down to you make? 1-foot at a time? 2? 6-inches? If I had not seen those fins in the chop I would have probably fished under the fish the rest of the day. Scary!

1fly: I had some hooks bend out--Grips and Partridge SLD's on these bigger fish. TMC 100 SPBL's dropped fish routinely whenever they got to really shaking their heads or jumping. Knapeks and Gamus held fish well. Also, got a top dropper hung on my tip-top that cost me a fish when it made a final lunge at the net so keep that in mind.