Ronan's Report

Home > Expedition > This is Winter Fishing…..

This is Winter Fishing…..

July 18th, 2014 Ronan Creane Leave a comment Go to comments

I drove the boat through coloured water and thick, freezing fog to get to where we wanted to go. Visibility was down to as little as 20 meters, but it was usually about 100. I know the lake well but the fog was very disorienting. I was searching for a specific area but not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I stopped the boat at the first sight of some weed beds. I knew where I wanted to be, but I had no idea if we were there or not! Mark quickly drew first blood with a big 5.5lb rainbow. Before long he had another and then we drifted off the hot spot. Trying to back track to the hotspot just didn’t work. I could not find it even though were we very close to it. Fog will do that. The drift was minimal due to little or no breeze; usually none, but there was some moving water from flooded rivers entering the lake. We haphazardly cruised along looking for more weeds while trying to keep land in sight. Without a visual it would be all too easy to get very lost. As tough as it was to find good water in the fog and murk, finding it was the only way to succeed. Therefore it was that persistence in searching that made the difference. The fog didn’t lift until well into the afternoon and then everything became clear. Our combined effort for day 0ne was 9 rainbows between 4 and 5.5lbs. We had no browns.

Day 2 started with a hard frost but there was no fog. We decided to go back to the same place. We hoped that the rivers would have dropped and cleared a bit over night and that the lake would be cleaner as a result. No such luck! Rain in the headwaters did the opposite. With the water even dirtier than the previous day, it was hard to find weed beds and the fishing started out very difficult. Mark managed 2 fast fish as per day 1 and that was it for quite a while. We used the same gear as day 1, Intermediate lines and buggers fished very slowly to match the extremely slow and delicate takes. After a while we realised the best fishing was in shallower, weedless extra dirty water. Weird. Once we cracked onto this we did well. Fewer big fish but similar numbers. At about 2pm the forecast SE change came in with a vengeance. The waves got big and messy. We braved it for an hour or so and caught a couple more fish, then moved to the shelter of a willow lined shore. I had seen some big browns under those willows while bank fishing a few weeks prior but did not catch any. I had a good feeling. Within a few minutes of starting the drift I was into a heavy, yellow bellied brown. He picked up the bugger with a tiny bit more haste than all the other fish from the weekend, but it would still be regarded as a gentle take. I don’t think I’ve ever observed such consistent delicate takes in my life; the same in both species. Every fish we hooked bar none.

Mark and I had one more each before the end of the drift and the end of the weekend. Our combined effort was 12 to about 4.5lbs. 7 rainbows and 5 browns. A total of 21 for the weekend. (11 for Mark… fucker!)

I might go back tomorrow!!

Ronan..