I usually like to hit pass in April when the tulips are in bloom and the water temps warm, it’s a great time to target these hungry fish. I left home at 8 am after dropping the boys off and made easy work of the 1.5 drive to the lake. The wind however would be a factor under cloudy skies and a brisk shift that was supposed to be SW but was coming off the West.
Jeff H. was already on the water and anchored in 26′ of water. I headed out towards the point in 16′ of water and tried there for a few casts without any luck. I anchored next to Jeff and swapped out rods as I like to two rods with varying leader lengths depending on the depth of water. I’ve found my 9′ rod works well with 15-18′ leader and the 10′ can go up to 40′ but casting is tough. Today I had 30′ of leader and that worked well tapered down to 6# fluro.
I picked up 3 fish in that spot before deciding to move to the eastern shoal in 17′. The wind was cutting through the clothing as I left my heavier fleece inside the van. Good thing at least I had my rain coat which helped with the cold air pushing inside but only had a T-shirt underneath.
Water temp was 54 degrees and the swallows were working actively at the launch and then moved towards the east channel where we were anchored. We did try moving around in the north bay, in front of the ranger house without any luck
We marked fish throughout the day in the channel so the saying hat you never leave fish to find fish is true once again.
I ended up with 12 fish to hand including 5 browns. They ranged in size from 14″-18″ for the big brown. It could have been better had we stayed at out original spot. The weather did improve in the afternoon and at times had some warm sunshine on our backs and faces.
The best pattern was a black red ribbed snowcone. It out fished all our other offerings including the ‘go to’ Chironomids. While fishing in the channel I witnessed a guy in a float tube clean up on his full sink line. His stripping worked as he caught more fish than most others who were indicator fishing. I never got a chance to talk to him but have a suspicion that he was using leeches or big baitfish patterns.
Back to the tying desk and replenish the micro leeches and meat and potato patterns.
