Rocky Lake, ID

Outing Information

Fish Caught

Cutthroat Trout

Weather

Other Patterns Tried

• #12 Pheasant Tail
• #16 Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear
• #10 Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear BH

Fishing Partners

No fishing partners were saved with this outing.

Waypoints

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Tides

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Notes

Sunday morning I got up around 8 and started fishing. The wind hadn't picked up yet and the fish appeared to be closer to shore. I spotted a couple large fish cruising randomly through a section of water. After a cast where one fish followed in a retrieved pheasant tail but didn't take it, I switched to a new fly - a rollover scud - and on the first or second cast the fish came up and took the sinking fly. It was cool, the way the fish started upwards I thought he was going for a fly on the surface, then I felt a tug on my line and he was on. He ended up being an 18" cutthroat. I wasn't able to get anything else on the rollover scud, but there was a fish rising pretty consistently in a small, deep bay so I put on a #14 yellow stimulator to match the large white moths that kept dropping onto the water. I assumed that's what was causing his big splashes. He ignored my fly once and cruised off and I didn't see him for awhile. I made a couple more casts and just let the fly sit there. I saw the fish swim past once more, then about a minute later on his way back, he came up and hit the fly. He measured 17". I moved on along the shore and made a blind cast to some underwater rocks that looked like decent cover. It was great - the stimulator hit the water and 3 seconds later the water exploded with another cutthroat. He was only 10", but the rise was awesome.

I moved down to a place where a rock cliff dove into the water and there was an array of drowned timber along the bottom. I changed flies to a #12 pheasant tail and a #16 gold ribbed hare's ear. I casted out with my floating line and just letting the flies sink for awhile before retrieving them. On back-to-back casts, I actually had 2 fish hit one of the flies as it was sinking, but I missed the fish because it was so hard to tell when the strikes were. The wind chopped up the water enough that I couldn't see the flies once they sank a foot or so, so I could only tell I had a hit when I'd try to tighten up the line a bit and feel a subtle strike. I think that method of fishing would be very good on clear water where you could see the fish and maybe the flies, and at least watch for an open mouth around where you think your fly is.

After that I took a nap and came back out around 3pm. Nothing much was rising, so I went to a Hang and Bob technique - tie on an indicator (in this case a #14 stimulator) to the stiff section of the leader. An inch or two above that, tie on some 5x leader so it hangs down at a right angle. I then tied on a pheasant tail at about 2' down and another PT at about 5' down. On windy days, the indicator rises up and down with the little waves, in effect creating a jigging effect on the dropper flies. I caught another 18" cutthroat and a 7" cutthroat on the top fly. I moved back to the cliff area and tied on a #10 bead head hare's ear on the bottom and casted out above all the sunken timber. The larger bead head fly started sinking the stimulator though, so I started a retrieve and a trout came out and gashed at the stimulator! So I switched to a sinking line with the stimulator. I would cast out and the stimulator would float while i was waiting for the line to sink, then I'd start my retrieve and the stimulator would dive down. Nothing for several casts and retrieves. I moved on to a place where I had seen a fish rising occasionally and on the second cast, the trout smacked the stimulator within a few seconds of it hitting the surface. Another 17" cutt. After that I was done for the day and went back to camp to pack up.

So the fishing was somewhat slow yesterday - I caught 6 fish in at least 5 hours of fishing time, maybe more. But, the big fish made up for the slow catch rate. 2 @ 18", 2 @ 17", 1 @ 10" and 1 @ 7". I caught 3 fish on methods I've read about by Gary Lafontaine in my books - 2 on the Hang and Bob for windy days, and 1 on the rollover scud (the trick with that fly is to twitch it right in front of a trout's nose - the fly sinks with the hook up, but when you twitch it the hook flips over. If close enough to a fish, it will cause an instinctive hit). Then I caught 3 on my methods - a stimulator on top. :)

One interesting thing I'm realizing about cutthroats - they aren't much for sippers, especially with mayflies. With rainbows and browns, if there is a good mayfly hatch with duns on the water, you will see them gently sipping. Not cutts. There were TONS of callibaetis duns and spinners on the waters, and with the wind, all of the mayfly adults were blown into the shores creating compression zones of floating insects. A trout could have gorged by cruising the shoreline and sipping all of these adults. But they didn't. They'd splash the occasional moth, but hung at least 4' deep otherwise. I was surprised by that. Then again, maybe the trout were feeding on all of the active callibaetis nymphs in the water.