Arrived at the lake around noon. The late start was because I had to finish working on the clutch hydraulic system on my truck. Anyway, fish were either jumping or thrashing the surface all afternoon long. Margaret and I were skunked for the first few hours, until we asked this guy on a pontoon raft what he was using. He has been constantly reeling in good sized trout from the time he first hit the water. Man, I was drooling. So, he says that he's been using #10 chironomids. I noted to Margaret that he failed to mention color. After we had lunch, we moved further north on the lake and rigged up floating lines and indicators on our fly rods. Prior to pulling anchor, I noticed a live chironomid ready to shuck. It looked like it was reddish, so I poked about in my flies until I found a bead-head that had the right color tone. Once we set anchor, I tried to offer Margaret her first fly fishing lesson. Well, as tenacious luck would have it, we kept getting hits, losses, and fish-on's while in mid lesson. Talk about learning navigation in a storm! Hell, roll casts were plenty good enough to score those beautiful, fat rainbows. On the subject of landing the fish, I told her to T.S. it and have fun. Surprisingly, those who weren't fly fishing were getting skunked, while those who had the hatch dialed in were not to be denied. Our final score was two released, three lost, and two kept. I never saw rainbows with such deep and bright red streaks down their sides before. They're going into the smoker tomorrow!
Happy Easter and Ciao!