During a duck hunting trip in November, I witnessed numerous fish rising in the bay we were hunting. I filed that experience away for a future date and this weekend provided the chance to check out the lake.

The day was partly cloudy and breezy at the start. Few fish were rising so I fished deep with a crystal chenille bugger and landed several nice browns in the 11-15 inch range. The fish preferred a bugger that was stripped vs. trolled and I wished I had my tube with me as the wind was blowing the boat around and making it difficult to stay in one area for very long.

Early afternoon brought calmer water and actively feeding trout along the tule beds. I parked the boat in the edge of the tule bed and switched over to fishing chironomid's. As I was preparing to cast, I noticed a rise about 30 feet down wind from me so I cast about 20 and let the fly settle. In a matter of seconds the indicator was down and the fish was on. The 15 inchers were a lot of fun to wrestle out of the weeds and to the boat. As a result, I had 3 break off but still managed to get several in.. Due to the break offs, I switched to 5X tippet but by this point, the fishing had slowed. Not sure if the bite went off or if the 5X was the problem but it was time to go so I didn't get to experiment.

Overall a nice. day. About half a dozen fish to hand with several missed strikes and the afore mentioned break offs in about 3 hours of fishing. Next time I will remember my float tube.

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