Two weeks ago when we visited Alta Lake, it was still sound asleep with a few minibows tugging our lines. Today I decided to give it another shot seeing that we have had a series of warm days. The Sea to Sky drive was especially slow today. From Granville and Broadway to Whistler with a brief food stop at Squamish's Tim Hortons, it took just under 3 hours.
The lake was peaceful as expected. Small chops on the surface created by the light breeze made condition very ideal. With some surface cover, lake fish seem to be less alert and more willing to bite. As we made our way out from the launch, a row boat slowly passed by. The rower appeared to be guiding a client who was anticipating for a hit on his trolled fly. "Any luck?", I asked. The guide nodded and suggested that the fishing has been good.
I quickly positioned the boat at where we had some bites two weeks ago. Suddenly the wind picked up some more, which made fishing while standing up rather challenging. I outfitted Erin with the usual spincasting setup, while I sent a size 6 leech pattern out on a sink tip. Immediately I could feel some quick tugs. They seemed to be little 8 inch buggers again. A few casts later I appeared to be correct as one after another one leaped and wiggled to the boat. In between some smaller fish, some slightly bigger rainbow and cutthroat trout grabbed the fly with no hesitation.
In a short span of time, I was able to connect with over a dozen fish.
Meanwhile, Erin's spoon seemed to be unproductive. I suggested for a slower retrieving speed. Awhile later, a average size cutthroat trout grabbed it just several feet from the boat.
I told Erin that these cutthroat trout that we were catching are in fact much smaller than what this lake can produce. "With some luck, we just might see one that is 5 or 6 times bigger than these."
I kept experiencing waves of bites with the brown leech pattern. At times, there would be half a dozen tugs per cast, but I held off the strike most of the time knowing that they were all small rainbow trout.
Once awhile a larger rainbow trout would commit firmly which put up a good scrappy fight. Seeing that Erin was not able to connect with more fish on her spoon, I decided to set up the other flyfishing rod with an indicator so she could watch it dip whenever a fish nibbles on the fly.
Both of us watched the indicator as I shot it out. As soon as it settled on the surface, a large trout rose and tried to grab the indicator!
A few seconds later, the indicator took a dive as another fish grabbed the fly.
It was rather wild even though no fish were hooked during the entire event. I handed the rod over. Erin tried her best to keep her eye(s) on the indicator since she had took one of the contact lenses out earlier due to some problem with it. I continued stripping my fly, while watching her indicator. At times the indicator went sub-surface, started swimming around, but only to see Erin remaining motionless.
"Pull!", but beside a few brief headshakes, the fly came up empty. This went on for at least a dozen times.
Finally the indicator took another dip and remained under for a long time. Without being alerted, Erin yanked the rod back and the full bend suggested a much larger fish at the other end. I had to stop Erin from stripping in the line so quickly because the fish was pulling just as hard at the other end. With constant headshakes, this fish remained in the deep as it made its way to the boat. The first surfacing had me looking for the landing net frantically. It was easily the biggest cutthroat trout that I have seen from this lake! I leaned over to see where it was. A couple of times it made us hold our breath as it went for the anchor rope. The fly line's loop connector to the leader was now caught at the rod tip. She had no way to bring the fish to the surface and I was too afraid to grab the line. Finally with some pulling the loop freed itself from the tip and the fish resurfaced. On my third try, I managed to slipped the entire fish into the net.
Not only was it long, it was fat unlike some of the early season fish that we often see. The semi-silvery, heavily spotted body also made it the prettiest specimen I have seen to date.
First fish on the fly, some just seem to be able to pull this kind of things off.
The rest of the day did not seem to matter that much. We managed to hook into some more rainbow trout. I was hoping to connect with a lunker like hers but by 5:30pm, it was not going to happen today. With between 20 to 30 fish boated, we decided to end the outing as the wind was getting a bit too much to handle.
Good luck to all who are heading out this weekend.
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Topic: Alta Lake, May 9th 2008 (Read 2190 times)