Sunday, September 24, 2017

Fall Frenzy

The last couple weekends have been busy, the weather is cooling off and the leaves are starting to drop. School is back in meaning I am up to my neck in paperwork and my little bit of spare time I find on the weekend has been spent hunting. Well this weekend I decided to get out fishing despite the forcast of rain (which ended up only being a few drops here and there)

I went to a local lake that I had fished once before in August. The results were good and I was hoping for a similar day... which did not happen. However, contrary to what you may now be assuming I had an even better day.

It didnt take me long, maybe five minutes, and I found fish. I had rowed the shoreline in my pontoon and hooked up trolling a red ad black mohair leech pattern. I unbuttoned the rainbow and anchored up. Fanning my casts out in a circular pattern around me I was picking up a fish every three casts or less! There was no pattern to it, just fly in water time. Some were hooked on a fast retrieve, some on a slow and some on the drop after the fly hit the water. I even had a few hook ups where the fly had barely hit the water and the fish smashed it. I pumped one fish and there really wasnt much on the menu to imitate with a fly (see picture), but the leech was working so why change up?

I would fish that anchored spot until the action "died" down (meaning I went ten or so casts without a fish), pull anchor and anchor up just outside my casting radius from my last drop. This would put me back into the three cast or less ratio.
Long story short. The fish shredded a number of flies, I landed 40+ fish (I really tried to keep count but lost count in the 30's) and lost who knows how many. The fish were all rainbows and averaging 16" with some pushing 20". Many were acrobatic giving flying leaps, hurtling through the air, contorting and cartwheeling in an attempt to escape. Others bull dogged and tried to go deep. All were a good fight and I went home with a sore wrist.

It was a fantastic fall feeding frenzy.