Kat lives in Langley, BC. She’s a Library Learning Commons Teacher and has a Doctoral degree in Educational Practice with a focus on fly fishing narratives and educational practice. She started fly fishing in her teens and fishes with Nora, her dog and her dad. When she’s not fishing or teaching she’s writing about fishing.
This week Kat shares some tips and tricks she’s learned when fishing lakes.
Tips
- If unfamiliar with a lake, use a combo floating/sinking line. Or if you know the lake’s depth and it’s deeper, use a full sink line. Use intermediate line when you know depth or fish finder has fish sitting in less than 5’ of water.
- Water clarity and fish species will determine leader length. Use a 9‘ 3x tapered leader with 3x tippet for most trolling; in gin clear water or if fishing for spooky fish, use up to a 14’ leader.
- When you can, set up your rods prior to departure. This saves time at the boat ramp!
- Always pack more than you need, especially a favorite and productive fly.
- Leave no trace. Pack out garbage and use a monofilament tube to keep tippet and leader scraps from flying away and falling into the water.
Practice More Net Releases
Practice more net releases and take photos of fish in the net to lessen stress on the fish.
Throat Samples to identify bugs
If a trout is large enough to withstand a quick throat sample, it can help you when the fishing is slow and can help you better identify fly patterns, in particular chironomid patterns to use for indicator fishing. If you can match the hatch of chironomid patterns, you will have productive day.
Use black leech patterns in any unfamiliar lake, as leeches are a go-to year-round pattern
