On the spur of the moment ( 8pm) I fiendishly went on a mad dash to get my
waders on and my tube and rod rigged up, and headed to Amber lake. I broke
several land speed records, and managed to gear up and get on the water by
8:25. Several fishermen were leaving the lake as I was getting in, all of whom
said they'd caught several fish each (slow for Amber). Due to time constraints
my plan was to stick within 100 yards of the launch. There were quite a few
fish rising in a bay just to the right of the launch, so I set about casting a
mayfly cripple. The fish were taking adult and spinner mayflies, and it took
me only seconds to hook into a fish. Unfortunately the bay I was fishing in
seemed to be choked with fish that only two months earlier had been seven
inches long. Now they were closer to nine, which I guess is long enough for
them to start getting in the way of the bigger fish. I have no interest in
catching nine inchers at a lake where I routinely catch much larger fish, so I
changed tactics and trolled around a hare's ear. As I got further from the
launch the sounds of much larger fish rising and jumping could be plainly
heard in the shallow, weedy end of the lake. My plan to stick close to the
launch was quickly aborted, and I made my way to the action. The water was
boiling with fish, some finning, some jumping, and some just sucking mayflies.
It was getting dark, so I gave up on the tiny dries and started casting a PDC
emerger. The nearly full moon was providing a welcome glow, so I fished well
after dark. I caught three 13-15 inch fish in about an hour, all on PDC's. The
13 incher I caught was a triploid (sterile) rainbow. Several fly clubs in
conjunction with the WDFW and the FFF had planted 3000 triploids in the lake
as an experiment to determine exactly how large these fish can get. Because
the triploids don't spawn, the live much longer and grow much larger than your
typical rainbow. The recently caught state record rainbow from Lake Rufus
Woods was a triploid. In any case I had caught several triploids earlier in
the year, and they all measured about 11. The fact that they're alread 13 is a
good sign for fishing in the future. Next year Amber is going to have a
monstrous population of fish, with many, many holdovers. Very few anglers
retain fish here, anf the lake is already totally stuffed with 14 + inch fish.

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