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[halcyonguitars]

What kind of flies might tempt the freshly stocked local lakes?

[Fish Assassin]

Mini leeches

[clarkii]

Blobs, boobies, leeches, etc.  Basically if it moves and resembles food or something obnoxious they will eat it.

[halcyonguitars]

Thanks, I'll have to give that a go!

[DanL]

In addition to the above good pieces of advice, any of the classic trout attractor/search patterns should be very effective too.

Doc Spratleys, Wooly Buggers, Hare's Ear nymph. Muddler Minnow etc

Being hatchery raised they probably arent too sophisticated yet and may not have even seen a bug in real life. But they are predators and like another poster said will take anything that looks edible so no real need to 'match the hatch' unless you want to.

[RalphH]

if you consider most if not almost all local lakes are acidic and a bit tannic the trout food critters are most often dark colored as in dark browns and blacks. Also they are not large. I'd also observe how quickly they adapt to eating what's available often meaning what is hatching. My experience is that flies with peacock herl - and there are a lot of them are very effective. A simply brown or grizzly hackle for example or if there is a chironomid hatch - a tunkwanomid. Yellow or bright green are good colors to base attractor patterns. 

[Dave]

As usual, good advice RalphH

[psd1179]

Not many hatches in lower mainland lakes. However, in the first a couple of week of April, fishing small chironomid will be highly rewarded.

[halcyonguitars]

Got a few bobber drops and caught one on a wee chironimid pattern. Satisfying!

[HOOK]

My best little chironie for the urban lake trout is this

Size 16 scud hook
Copper bead to suit hook size (5/64", 1.5mm)
Red thread
Red XS size wire rib
Black flashabou body

Make sure to use the thread to make a red butt on the fly. I call this fly the "Green Timbers special" because I designed it for the pellet heads in there and it's wored very well for all urban lakes plus the interior. Many variations were tried before falling on this final recipe.

Tight lines !!

[DanL]

I call this fly the "Green Timbers special" because I designed it for the pellet heads in there

haha that's great. I'm going to whip up a few of these "GTS' chironomids and test your theory out.

If this pattern really is extra effective (and that's a big if) on hatchery catchables, I wonder if it's the copper bead that triggers a response conditioned to feed pellets, otherwise I'm not sure why this combo would be any better than a regular Black Sally, or any other c-mid pattern, really.

Regardless it's fun to experiment.

[HOOK]

haha that's great. I'm going to whip up a few of these "GTS' chironomids and test your theory out.

If this pattern really is extra effective (and that's a big if) on hatchery catchables, I wonder if it's the copper bead that triggers a response conditioned to feed pellets, otherwise I'm not sure why this combo would be any better than a regular Black Sally, or any other c-mid pattern, really.

Regardless it's fun to experiment.

There has been many days when I've tried lots of other patterns and kept going back to it. I've also had great days with black/red rib/white bead with red butt however the copper still outfishes. I think the key may be the bead but also it's tiny size, the original hook I tied these on were Tiemco 2499SPBL size 16 which made them even smaller by a little. I also have another pattern I dubbed "the Bra Strap" which I designed for Tunkwa/Leighton in the spring and works decently on our urban pellet heads as well.

Enjoy and I hope that little bug plunges your bobber repeatedly 

[FlyFishin Magician]

Nice Hook!  I remember you and  your dad putting the licking on them pellet heads!  So that was the secret fly you were using???  I remember one day when all three of us had our indicators continuously diving, but the hook just wouldn't take.  I just might have to ask you for your "Bra-strap" recipe...

[FlyFishin Magician]

Back to the OP - I've had great success using a self-bodied Carey Special (size 10 - 12) on our local lakes in the past.  I haven't fished the local lakes in a couple of years, but that pattern always produced when trolled with a clear intermediate sinking line.  Small leeches also worked very well.

[HOOK]

Here is the original GT Special......wine thread thorax. Red works just as good, I just decided to do the wine on a few too