Rick Passek
In early June, I spent 4 days fishing at a small high elevation lake. Weather was as to be expected, Cool mornings, warm afternoons with winds picking up as the day progressed.
Day 1, what a day……. 40+ fish to the net with another 10-15 lost. These Penasks fight WAY above their weight class, and I mean WAY ABOVE!! average fish we 17″-18″ with many 20″-22″. There are several weed beds and drop offs at this lake, and in the AM I worked the drop offs (12-18′) with a Vampire Leech under an indicator, and stripped back a Sparkle bugger on a type 7 sinking line. Both had sucsess, but the Vampire was the clear winner.
By 10:30, I could hear a ton of sub surface slurps throughout the lake, but especially located around a small sunken weed Island int he center of the lake where the depth goes from 18′ to 8′ to 2 feet. There were fish attacking migrating Damsels EVERYWHERE.
I moved, anchord my boat right in the 2 foot shallows and cast away. One rod, I had on a small size 14 baby damsel with a flat black tungsten bead set at 8″, the other rod, my all CDC Damsel (Click here for tying video) The CDC damsel was on a floating line, 10″ lf 4X florocarbon leader and stripped back ever so slowly with the odd pop strip. The babby Damsel under the indicator was left to bounce in the slight chop. The key to the retrieve with the Floating line was slow, with the odd wiggle of the rod tip to make an erratic movement.
Both methods produced fish for about 2 hours, with the stipped version slightly outfishing the hung one. By 1pm, like an alarm clock, it shut off and in the next hour i only landed one fish.
Day 2, Same as day 1, in the AM, leeches, and by 10:30, Damsels. This time, the action was off just a bit from the day before, but still managed 30+ for the day.
Day3, again, very similar, however, in the AM, they did not want the Leech in any way so I switched over to a blob under the indicator and a green Cary stripped in. Both started to produce the odd fish until the Damsel smorgasboard started again but this time not until closer to 11:30 as it was more cloud covered and MUCH cooler.
All throat samples from the 3 days showed Tan/Grey scuds around size 20, some light green Daphnia in the AM, and leeches and Damsels after 11AM. I tried scuds, not one bite.
Great 3 days, close to home, and the best thing, I saw 2 other fishermen on day 1, and nobody the next 2…… LOVED IT
