Rat Lake Report 8.15.16
Have you ever gone fishing and got a nice surprise?
I had some time off and made plans to meet up with Rob from the gun department to do a little fishing at Rat Lake. After about a hour delay (partly on my part and the other part complements of our state highway department), I rendezvoused with Rob at the grocery store in Brewster. We were at the lake a short time later.
Once rigged up and flies picked, we pushed the boat out. My new favorite rod, the Echo 6wt Glass with a type #3 line was my go to rod for the day. Rob rigged up his Echo Base 5wt with a floating line with a 10' Extra Fast sink Polyleader.
With Rob as the captain, he rowed us along the west side of the lake, stopping every 20 yards as we cast and made slow retrieves. We had a few halfhearted hits for the fist 100 feet or so, then the action took off. I hooked up on a fish that hit hard and took line. After about 5 minutes, it came un-buttoned. We swung the boat around and again, worked our way back to the boat launch, as I had forgot something in my Jeep.
Rat Lake is a nice sized lake, nestled under high rocky sloped to the west and grass covered hills to the east. We couldn’t have asked for a better day with a gentle breeze and a half dozen large flocks of Chukars sounding off around us.
We changed direction and started working down the east shore and in no time, we started netting fat 13" to 15" rainbows. I was using a yellow crystal bugger and Rob had switched to a yellow and orange boobie fly. At one point, as we worked our way around a point, a hard charging fish hit Rob's fly so hard it parted the 5x tippet with ease. Unfortunately, that was the only boobie fly we had in that color. Rob re-rigged with a heavier leader and switched to a yellow crystal bugger.
Like before, the action picked right up and fish were having no problem taking the flies we offered. Being the person I am, I have habit of changing flies to see what else might work. I switched to a Rickard's seal bugger. It saw action, but not quite as much as the bugger I had on before. After about an hour, I decided to switch bugs again, this time I tied on a small minnow pattern. After a few casts, I had what would best be described as a savage attack on the fly. A nice and chunky 17" bow was soon brought to net. A short time later, another fish hit just as hard if not harder, but was gone just as fast. I took a break letting Rob work some areas. I made a few casts, when Rob hooked up and landed a nice 16".
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As he was fighting the fish, I reeled up my line only to discover no fly at the end of the leader. Yes, I had not been paying much attention to my casting and never notice I was fishing flyless. We both had a good laugh over that and it just goes to show always follow your rule of checking your fly and leader after every fish. We turned around and decided it was time to call it a day and started working our way back to the launch, since I had taken a water temp reading and the temp was inching its way above 65 degrees.
We got about 70 yards from the launch when I had another savage hit. This time, the leader held and I landed a nice fat 19" bow. A quick photo and off to fight another day the fish went. I caught a couple more that were close to this one as we got closer to the launch.
Overall, we were real happy with the morning and quite surprised by the great action we got into.
As a side note here, with temps getting into the high 90s and higher be careful with the fish. Fish in the morning and keep checking the water temperature. When it gets in that area of 65 to 68 degrees you might want to call it a day to save stressing the fish out.
As always, stop by the shop the coffee is free and so is the information on our area waters.