The Art of Lake Fly Fishing

 

This evening President Tom called our meeting to order at 7:30.

We had 16 club members and guest in attendance.

Tom announced that he had attended the Walla Walla 2015 4-H Achievement / Awards Program

on November 15 on behalf of our club, and awarded $25 to their fishing / fly tyer winner.

Tom brought to our attention that the Tri-States Steelheaders had made a public request via their Fall Newsletter (PDF) to help in their effort to recondition Lion’s Park in College Place which provides many community amenities, including a youth fishing pond.
Tom also announced that with the club taking our annual Fall/Winter Holiday Fishing Break, the next meeting would be in January 2016, and Grant Richie would be making a 2015 recap fly fishing presentation to us from the Minam Raft Rentals and Guide Service.

Club blog-master Dale gave a brief report of the 2015 Walla² Fly Fishers blog hits stats. He reported that the blog hit count was currently at 33,157.

Blog Hits from around the world	Counts
USA	23,720
Russia	1353
France	1066
Germany	890
Ukraine	611
United Kingdom	308
Some of the other countries visiting our blog site are – Canada, Poland, Netherlands, China, etc.
The most hit upon blog page – A Blue Mountain Fly Hatch Chart with 4258 hits
The second most hit upon blog page – Steelhead fishing on the John Day River with 473 hits

This evening we had the pleasure to meet a rather new resident to Walla Walla, and enjoyed the program presentation of Daniel Biggs. 

 Daniel moved to the Walla Walla area about a year ago from Bend, OR, and currently works for a local real estate company. While in Bend, Daniel tells us that he was inspired by our friend Brian O’Keefe to get into fly fishing photography. On an amateur / semi-professional level he begin to filming his fly fishing outings of the Central Oregon high lakes. Some of his “work” has been shown on local TV stations -sportsmen’s shows- around Oregon. This evening's program was a fly fishers’ treat to see some of the success that Daniel and company has had fishing the stillwaters of Central Oregon. 

Some of the lakes fished being shown in this presentation were, Crane Prairie Reservoir, Hosmer Lake, Paulina Lake, Wickiup Reservoir, Mann Lake and more.

High lakes of Central Oregon

Also discussed was the fly fishing gear needed to successfully catch some of the trophy size fish in these lakes. A good floatation craft (float tube, pontoon boat, canoe, John boat, etc. – no motors allowed on most lakes) is the best first line of attack. 

 

Daniel suggested that one uses a 5 weight rod system preferably 9’ in length. For fly line, he noted that floating line with a strike indicator would work well, but for better catching results one should use a sinking line – intermediate sink or full sinking. He said that he had found that a fast full-sinking-line worked best in the deep lakes as the fish are usually close to the bottom, particularly during mid-day, and bright light conditions. 

Floating

Fast sinking

Intermediate sinking

Flies to use are mostly subsurface flies as 90% of all trout’s diet is  aquatic insects, smaller fish, leeches and crustaceans.

Green Callibaetis

chironomid larvae - blood worms

Rufus Blood Leech

  

90 - 95% of a trout's diet is sub-surface animal and plant life

 Since a picture is worth-a-thousand-words, this blog posting will feature pictures from the screen of Daniel’s video presentation. Many of the fish that Daniel caught on-the-fly were of trophy size 16"-20"+. Stillwater fish do get large and fat as they do not have to spend their energy to swim into or against current to gather food as do river and stream habitat trout. Hooking and setting the hook on stillwater trout is also much differently done than on moving water fish. Because of the large number of fish that can be caught in a day of stillwater fly fishing (50-100-200), it is suggested that one uses barbless hooks for quick and easy catch & releases.

 

a steelhead size -"trophy"- stillwater rainbow trout - aka. a lunker or a hog

Stillwater fly fishing is probably the most relaxing fishing that one can be involved in particularly in the high lakes of the Pacific Northwest. There is no riverside hiking pace to keep up with, there is no current to stand-up or wade against, and all of the fishing is done while sitting down. Depending on your flotation craft, about the only peril one has to deal with while stillwater fishing is the wind.

Yep, that is a left ear hookup - OUCH! %^$#%

Daniel mentioned that on Mann Lake this can really be an issue, and it is catch-can depending on the day and the weather the days spent fishing there.

Another interesting point discussed this evening, a very interesting point in stillwater fly fishing is that most women fishing partners always catch more fish. It has been discovered that the simple fact is - pheromone; so guys don't bet with a woman as to who might have the better day of catching, particularly if fishing in stillwaters - lakes.



The fly boxes of the evening were won by:
Dick - the door prize
Robert - the raffle drawing

Tis steelhead season in the Pacific Northwest as our fly boxes would indicate tonight

Our meeting was adjourned at 8:40 pm
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Our next monthly meeting will be held Wednesday. 20 January 2016 at...

Smith's Family Restaurant

1425 Pine Street

Walla Walla
http://www.smithsfamilyrestaurant.com/
Dinner and social at 6:00 pm with meeting following at 7:00
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  Respectfully submitted
Dale McKain
Club Secretary ~ Blog-master

Tight lines and Good Fishing

Contact Us

Tom Craig – President
Dave Stemmer – Vice President
Doug Coe – Treasurer
Dale McKain – Secretary - Blogmaster 
Gerald Newell - PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator