It's been a while since I'd been to Lake Martha, and, with the rivers being blown out, lake fishing seemed in the cards. Several days of cooling rain and lingering cloud cover also made for good trout hunting conditions.

I arrived in the early afternoon and fished into the early evening. There were lots of perch in the shallows--something that I'd encountered in the past--so it was a matter of working the deep water. Trolling a small black bugger earned two rainbows and one brown--all around 12". Switching to a marabou leech pattern was the ticket to a heavy bend in my rod. Unfortunately, that one got off before I could get a look at it. Trolled again through the same area and found myself with another big bend. After playing for around 5 minutes what I thought had to have been a 20" rainbow, I brought to hand a 16" to 17" brown. That made my day.

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