I teach a fly fishing class for EWU and last night was our outing to Amber Lake. We had a total of 6 rods in the water with 3 of them being first time fishermen.

Overall the lake treated us well. Every student caught at least two fish and several of the more experienced anglers landed 4-6 each. The lake is still on the cool side and only midges are coming off. No sign of the Damsel Fly nymphs yet but they should become active any day now. Same story with the May Fly's.

The most effective pattern of the evening was a brown wooly bugger. This was followed closely by a green wooly worm. Fishermen were doing well with chironimid patterns up in the West end weed beds.

We caught several of the fin clipped triploids and they are now starting to push 19 inches and looking very healthy. The DFW also dumped some of the pen raised triploids in and they are between 1.5 and 3 pounds. The pen raised fish fight decent but tire very quickly and need reviving before they swim away so don't assume that the cool water will prevent their fatigue.

During the last hour of daylight, the fish started rising en mass to ememerger midges. Lots of fun and some dry fly action for the teacher!

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