Sampling The Fly Rod Troll

Mike was joining me today and we hit the lake just after 7:00 A.M. with hopes for a great day. The weather had warmed up considerably and hadn’t cooled off much overnight. It was 56 degrees when we started and the water temps were above 66 when I set the lines. Although the lake was blowing at 10 to 15 from the south, the area I was in hadn’t a ripple. Mostly cloud cover with an occasional sunny break made the trolling quite pleasant. Too bad the fish weren’t active here as it was over an hour before we had a reel fire and it was another drive bye. Eventually I found a sole fish suspended 15 down over 40 feet of water and once again stalled the boat letting the lines drop into the strike zone before hitting the gas again. Seconds later the short, deep line screamed and it was game on. Mike had the first fish of the day and of his life on the fly and boy was it a crazy one. It must have gone to the air at least a dozen times and blazed line from the reel the whole time. It was touch & go several times as to whether or not he was going to land this fish but we were finally able to get it into the net. To my amazement, it wasn’t a salmon but rather a very nice rainbow of over 3 pounds. Bonus fish! After battling this trout on the fly rod, Mike wished that he had taken me up on the spring season salmon fishing much earlier. We combed this section a little longer without another touch before I decided to hit the other area I had found yesterday afternoon. When I arrived, I wished that I had hit it earlier as the wind was blowing pretty good and there were fish everywhere. Along with all the suspended hooks there was also the presence of baitfish and I knew we were going to get bit. Within minutes over 120 feet of water, the long line started screaming and before I could even get it out of the rod holder, the salmon was going aerial, way back. Mike was having a blast battling these fish on light tackle and couldn’t believe just how much fun they actually were. Unfortunately, this salmon was a little short at just under 16 inches and had to be released. I reset the lines and started trolling again and within 10 minutes the long line went off once more and Mike was into another silver bullet. I think this salmon came close to the rainbow with the number of jumps it made before getting to the net. Once again we had to release the fish as it was 1/8 of an inch shy of the legal limit. I was sure we were going to get into a bunch more and wasn’t worried! To my amazement, the winds let up almost completely and when they died, so did the bite. It was like I was in a ghost town as nothing was marking on the sonar at all anymore. I covered different water trying to find them again and around one point started marking fish when both reels went off at the same time. Too bad one was a perch and the other a juvenile salmon! We kept at it in search of active fish but only picked at them for the remainder of the day. A couple of short lake trout and another salmon were added to our catch but none of them were legal and went back to the water unharmed. Although it would have been nice for Mike to take a salmon or two home along with the rainbow, he still had a blast fighting these scrappy little aerial acrobats on the fly. I’m sure when I let him know next season that the bite is on that he will be one of the first to book a day, knowing what he knows now!!