Spring Fly Fishing — Northern Fly

After what seemed like a very long winter it was great to get out on the water with the float tube. Some of my more dedicated (mostly retired) fisher friends had already been out this season but it was a first for me. The weather forecast indicated this was the best day of the week - sun and cloud, reasonable temperature, and little wind. Sounded promising.

It took a while to get all my gear in order but by the time I packed it in the night before, I figured I had everything sorted out. It wasn’t a super early start to the day but that was fine. I was on the water by 9:30, greeted by a few raindrops which dissipated by the time I kicked out to where I intended to start fishing.

Word had it that a few days earlier the chironomids had been out in full force so I decided to rig one rod to fish them should the opportunity arise. A second was set up with an intermediate line and a streamer.

The streamer was a light olive marabou variety with a chartreuse bead. I didn’t recall tying it and am not sure where it came from. But it seemed like a good choice to start with. And it didn’t disappoint. Within fifteen minutes of getting the line out for the season’s first cast, a sharp tug and I was on to a nice rainbow trout. After a short but energetic fight it was in the net, photo taken and quickly released.

I have heard it said on more than one occasion “never leave fish to find fish” but apparently such wisdom is meant to be ignored - at least it was for me as I continued on my course to the west lake shore. As I approached the shore and the water depth decreased the presence of fish was evident by both my depth indicator showing fish near the bottom as by fish regularly dimpling the surface. This was encouraging. I had a couple solid hits but nothing stuck as I continued along the shoreline approaching the lake outlet.

The outflow is controlled by a beaver dam which seems to hold back the entire lake. The photo doesn’t do it justice but the water level difference on either side of the dam had to have been five feet or more.

But more to the point, there seem to be quite a few fish congregating near the outlet. A solid strike from one of them told me I was into a good fish. I had to work hard to keep it steered from the underlying beaver debris and eventually was able to bring in a rainbow trout that was a solid sixteen inches.

This was followed by another nicely coloured fish on the streamer.

When the fish interest in my streamer seemed to slow, I decided to switch to the chironomid rig hoping to entice some of the rising fish. Despite playing around with my depths, I wasn’t able to muster any response so I picked up the streamer rod again along with my sandwich and apple.

Multi-tasking didn’t seem to work but once lunch was out of the way and I was paying more attention to the fishing, things picked up again with a few hits and another couple fish brought in. One of them looked to have had a very hard winter.

A hard hit to my streamer led to a back and forth fight with another good sized fish that eventually came to the net and was quickly released.

Despite evidence of chironomid shucks, fish continued to break the surface a different spots around the lake so I decided it was time to go back to the chironomid rig.

This proved less successful than hoped although I was able to land one on a small black snow cone fly. This was followed but closely by a second hit that didn’t stick. After fishing for a while with no further activity, I decided to check my fly. Nothing there. Apparently the last hit broke me off which might explain the lack of activity!

Although I remedied this situation, the action didn’t pick up significantly and I was starting to feel the effect of being on/in the 48F water for almost six hours. As tempting as it was to see how the late afternoon would turn out, I decided to call it a day.

A great day out and hopefully the start to a great fishing season.

First Outing of the Year!

Some Lakes Are Hard!

It’s Time for a New Look and Name