Lake Chaparral

[reevesr1]

Got out to the neighborhood lake with Troutlover today. We figured we needed to pre-fish a bit for our auction item. We went to what is typically the most productive bay, or so I've been told, and set up shop. We stuck a few fish right away, but did notice more fish near surface than normal. So I pulled a hawgstopph and went really shallow. Like around a foot to the top fly. That was the ticket. The action was pretty much non-stop. Most productive flies were a scud pattern and a small leech like pattern kungfool tied for me. KF, that rubber legged pt looking fly lasted 1 cast and busted off under a pier on a pretty big fish. After we had got a few each, fish started hitting my indicator. I put on a big crane fly and a scud dropper and did get one on the crane fly (first dry fly fish of the year) and a couple on the scud. But it the failing light the dry was hard to see, so I gave up after a bit. I'll try more next time I go.

 

I'm not sure how many we ended up with, but it was well over 20 in the two hours we fished. But there is absolutely no telling how many we missed and ldr'd. I would say at least 3 to 4X the number we caught. They were hitting very light, and very fast. Like the indi would go down for <<1 second and then pop back up. We tried every method of striking we could think of. Our end theory was it is WAY easier when it is windy, very tough when calm. That or we caught the stupid fish first. One cool thing was when Jared had a fish on, there were two or three more bigger fish chasing it around! Spawning behavior?

 

Most fish were between 16 and 19", and all FAT. Jared did have a couple of bigger fish on, but lost them.

 

Here is my one pic of Jared with a trout. He has lots of me! Apparently he is more willing to stop fishing to take a picture than I am. Seemed every time I got my line in and got ready, he would have already released the trout. That and the fact he ldr'd a lot more than I did! Hopefully he can figure out how to post the rest.

 

 

Edit:

Apparently he hasn't figured it out yet.

[Hawgstoppah]

Nice!

[monger]

Good job guys. Kevin has been guiding me at our lake...scary fish on this side of the highway.

Fast indicator movement...try inching your line in an inch or two at a time. Sometimes the movement helps with hook ups. Small indicator movements are sometimes caused by the fish swirling around your flies and bumping the leader. Sometimes this results in foul hooking. Glad to hear you got some on the surface. The torpedoes at our lake aren't very willing to come up yet.

[troutlover]

Yes it was ridiculos how many fish we hooked up with it was even more stupid how many we lost after a 5 second fight it was even MORE stupid how many strikes we missed. I think the best fish of the night were the ones we never even managed to land. One that jumped three times sideways two feet until he managed to cross the streams "AAHHH DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!!"(snap) or the one that came out of the water as he SLAMED my indicator as i was taking a picture of Ricks fish. Or the monster that that leaped form the water and we in unison "WOOOOWA!" and then the duck as my rig comes flying back to the boat. But the absolute best part was listening to Texas as he comes unbottoned for the 20th time in a row "DAGMANIT!" I'll post pics tonight as soon as i figure out how but i don't have many as Rick said we didn't stop long to fiddle with cameras.

[reevesr1]

He is not exaggerating much on the "20th time in a row" part. There was a point where we had to have completely missed, or hooked and ldr'd at least 12-15 fish in a row. It was almost comical. I did drop a bit of a bad word at one point, but said "I probably shouldn't swear this close to people's houses."

 

Rob, do you find your fish are fighting well right now? It seems like the fight was down a bit last night. Just after ice off, they were on steroids. Now, not as much. There are lots of trips in our lake, but do they exhibit spawning behavior at all? I did think that they were fat because of this, but they are solid as a rock.

[monger]

The males will still color up a bit and cruise, but no sperm is produced. Females should stay clean with no eggs.

The little guys (15-20") are fighting well with lots of leaping. The pigs seem to be getting in better shape with more endurance.

 

Did you guys find any scales on your hooks? With that many fish falling off I bet a few had hooks that weren't quite in the mouth.

[kungfool]

Glad to see those flies did you some good. That mini leach pattern has been working for me quite well this spring. Let me know if you need any more flies. I tie 10 times more than I could ever fish.

[reevesr1]

The males will still color up a bit and cruise, but no sperm is produced. Females should stay clean with no eggs.

The little guys (15-20") are fighting well with lots of leaping. The pigs seem to be getting in better shape with more endurance.

 

Did you guys find any scales on your hooks? With that many fish falling off I bet a few had hooks that weren't quite in the mouth.

 

Jared did. I didn't. I've personally never seen trout hit that fast and/or light. I also was wondering if the very shallow depth we were fishing impacted the hook up rate. I'll be interested to see how it changes with wind.

 

[Hawgstoppah]

were you using a big indy or a tiny one? for lake fishing, if your using a big one they feel it right away and spit the hooks.

[Hawgstoppah]

and were you setting straight up or sideways (lol rick you KNOW i was gonna throw that in on this post somewhere... you had to know!!) LOLOL

[reevesr1]

I DID set sideways a few times, even joked with Jared about it! I told him that if I set sideways for awhile he was sure to catch me. Uh, didn't help him!

 

In all seriousness, setting sideways didn't seem to matter. The best hookup rates I had was to wait a bit (like 1 second or so) after the take. My theory was with fishing that shallow in about 6-10 ft of water I would give them a chance to turn back down. It worked really well at first and it worked whenever you saw the indi disappear down (good hard takes). For the lighter hits, it didn't help at all. I think it actually made it worse. For the fish that were sliding the indi sideways or barely moving it under I think the best was a really fast strip set. But even then, you tended to ldr a bunch and completely miss a bunch more. I would say it was frustrating, but I had some fun trying different techniques.

 

The only mistake I think we made was NOT changing flies. We were getting so many hits that it did not occur to us. But I think that maybe had they seen something different they may have hit it with more aggression. Since I didn't test it out, I certainly don't know. But next time I'll switch up some.

 

As to the indi..same one I used on BH. But next time I'll downsize.

[monger]

It sounds to me like a lot of these minor indicator movements (slight dip/sideways) would have been line bumps and not bites (unless you are dealing with tiny fish, which I don't think you were). I've watched the trout swarm around flies under the ice and on camera. They hit the line quite often when using more than one fly.

It's an interesting thought about indicator size. I can't say that I've noticed a difference in hook up rate between sizes. Sometimes all I see with the big indicator is the rotation of the toothpick or a slight vibration. They have it. It has been our experience that the bigger the fish, the slower the take. I think big fish are often slowly grazing around sucking in their prey and not in a hurry. Things can change during a mass bug emergence or minnow hunt, but generally big fish are quite lazy.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

troutlover wants me to post some pics of him but I had the same problem as rickr... Almost all pics were of me...fish after fish after fish...Not much for the other guy. The few photos I have of troutlover...he has some freaked out crazed look that he never stopped making...even when the camera was off. And that incessent twitching...did it bother you also rickr?

 

We are having fun at the other "secret" lake but I seem to point more fish to monger...I did get a 26, 27 and a 28 incher all between 9:30 and 10 pm though. Right at dusk they seem to move into the shallows along with the perch.

 

Those Chap trout sure are fat and in great shape! When do they stock there again?

[SteveM]

Sounds like y'all had a fun evening,fellas.

Musta been a non-stop shite show;gotta luv it!

 

[reevesr1]

troutlover wants me to post some pics of him but I had the same problem as rickr... Almost all pics were of me...fish after fish after fish...Not much for the other guy. The few photos I have of troutlover...he has some freaked out crazed look that he never stopped making...even when the camera was off. And that incessent twitching...did it bother you also rickr?

 

We are having fun at the other "secret" lake but I seem to point more fish to monger...I did get a 26, 27 and a 28 incher all between 9:30 and 10 pm though. Right at dusk they seem to move into the shallows along with the perch.

 

Those Chap trout sure are fat and in great shape! When do they stock there again?

I've noticed the crazed expression. If you ever want to change that look to one of befuddlement, just hand him the net and watch the comedy show begin. He sorta freaks out. I keep waiting to try to pull the trout away on purpose just as he tries to net to freak him out even more, but I find it unnecessary. He couldn't net a stick floating by.

 

Another trick is to lie about the length of his fish. this is particularly effective days on the Bow where he is outcatching you 2 to 1. Jared is totally unable to estimate fish lengths, so you can easily subtract 2" from every fish he catches. The crazed expression morphs into the befuddled one when he hears the length, but since he can't really tell 20 from 18, he will believe you in the end. The best part is you can add 2" to each of your fish as well. So really, you have to be pretty dim to let him believe he's caught a bigger fish than you.

 

On a different note, he did do pretty well with some green scud thing some guy from Sundance gave him (though I have to give a shout out to Kungfool here as his little leech was the fly of the night). I call it the Global Warming Special, or GWS. At the time it seemed to catch a lot of fish, but afterwards someone tries to convince you it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

I've noticed the crazed expression. If you ever want to change that look to one of befuddlement, just hand him the net and watch the comedy show begin. He sorta freaks out. I keep waiting to try to pull the trout away on purpose just as he tries to net to freak him out even more, but I find it unnecessary. He couldn't net a stick floating by.

 

Another trick is to lie about the length of his fish. this is particularly effective days on the Bow where he is outcatching you 2 to 1. Jared is totally unable to estimate fish lengths, so you can easily subtract 2" from every fish he catches. The crazed expression morphs into the befuddled one when he hears the length, but since he can't really tell 20 from 18, he will believe you in the end. The best part is you can add 2" to each of your fish as well. So really, you have to be pretty dim to let him believe he's caught a bigger fish than you.

 

On a different note, he did do pretty well with some green scud thing some guy from Sundance gave him (though I have to give a shout out to Kungfool here as his little leech was the fly of the night). I call it the Global Warming Special, or GWS. At the time it seemed to catch a lot of fish, but afterwards someone tries to convince you it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

 

I personally love the Global Cooling Bugger I use. Lots of cool blues to highlight the ice age we are moving into...

[troutlover]

your both a couple of cool buggers

[LynnF]

wow....your wife is right there Rick....your fishing buddy is certainly the eye candy in that boat LOL

 

Feel free to post more pictures of him and all the fish he caught