Dry fly trout technique on aColorado lake

[bubber]

I have fished streams for years and have just started fishing local Colorado Springs area lakes from shore, some questions:
I prefer dry flies, but am open to nymph or wets.
When fishing dry flies do you normally let the fly sit motionless, or give it some movement?
Since feeding fish are cruising, do you try casting to rises, or just cast randomly?
If little or no surface activity, is it a waste of time to stay with drys?
Thanks, I'm a new member, this is my 1st post.

 

[jdwy]

I'll cast to a rise if possible but the majority of the time I cast randomly. As far as motion, usually the wind causes a bit of motion, but I'll give the fly a twitch now and then. But I think the majority of my strikes have occurred when the fly is motionless. However I remember twice getting a hit on an Elk Hair Caddis as I quit fishing and rather than reeling in, I backed out of the water dragging the fly steadily so I think the answer is, who knows? And at times with no sign of any surface activity I'll switch to a Crackleback or a size 20 Zebra Midge, etc.

 

[dillon]

I, like you, after years of river fishing became interested in Stillwater trout. You ask some very good questions. I love to fish with dries but also enjoy using streamers an small nymphs. Stillwater trout are cruisers feeding both selectively and opportunistically. Since trout cruise it can be fruitless to cast directly at a rise form because the fish may be several feet from where it rose by the time your fly arrives on the stop. So, a good strategy is to try and determine which direction the fish is cruising and cast the fly there. It is also important to read the rise form to determine which stage of the insect the fish are keying on. When rising they are often taking emergers sub surface. It often takes a bit of experimentation with different flies both dry and wet and presentations both still and retrieved to unlock the code.

I found the book, “Stillwater Presentation” by Denny Richards very useful in gaining an understanding of how to fish lakes. Brian Chan is another good source of information on chironomids, a major food source for Stillwater trout.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your Stillwater adventure!

 

[flav]

I love stillwater dry fly fishing, and I would honestly say the answer to all your questions is sometimes.

I usually don't twitch my dry flies, especially if there is wave action, but sometimes it gets a cruising fish's attention. And speaking of wave action, don't be afraid to fish dries in wavy conditions, I've caught plenty of fish on dries when there were white caps. I prefer waves to flat conditions, it makes fish less spooky. Movement never seems to be a disadvantage, but it will sink your fly, so I keep it to a minimum.

I usually cast and let it sit, however, I'm always watching for risers and am ready to make a cast to cover a rise. If you're lucky you'll see a series of rises and be able to lead a fish, however that's doesn't happen very often. Fish usually cruise a few feet down so they can see a larger area of the surface, and wander around looking for bugs. Eventually you'll be able to read rises and tell which way a fish is heading, then you can make an educated guess where to cast. Fish usually cruise in relation to something, it may be parallel to shore, over a weed edge, or over a log or rock, and figuring that out helps. If you can't tell which way a fish is going, and you're fast, you can put your cast right in the ring of the rise and the fish will sometimes still be close enough that it'll turn back and eat your fly.

I seldom fish a dry unless I see surface activity, however it doesn't take more than a scattered rise or two to make me switch over to a dry. Some stillwaters have good dry fly fishing, and some just don't. Some times of the day and some times of the year are better and some just aren't, but you'll have to figure that out over time. Callibaetis are the primary stillwater dry fly hatch in the west, but I also carry midges, various sizes and colors of caddis, and ants in my stillwater box.

Good luck in your stillwater adventures, and welcome to the forum.

 

[silver creek]

I have fished streams for years and have just started fishing local Colorado Springs area lakes from shore, some questions:
I prefer dry flies, but am open to nymph or wets.
When fishing dry flies do you normally let the fly sit motionless, or give it some movement?
Since feeding fish are cruising, do you try casting to rises, or just cast randomly?
If little or no surface activity, is it a waste of time to stay with drys?
Thanks, I'm a new member, this is my 1st post.

I fish to cruising trout in Hebgen Lake feeding on the Callibaetis duns and spinners.

There are two main situations.

The first is when there is a prevailing wind, and there often is, the hatching callibaetis are blown across the water lake surface. The fish are mainly stationary and feed on the callibaetis much like they would in a river or stream that is bringing the food to them. So you cast in front of the fish, with slack and let the breeze/wind take the fly to the feeding trout.

The second situations is fishing to cruising trout feeding on the hatch. You need to analyze the rise to see whether they are taking the dun or an emerger and where in the water column the fish is taking the insect. You need to understand "rise forms."

A rise form is the impression the rising fish leaves on the water surface.

If you look very carefully, you can tell how the fish took the aquatic insect, and where the insect was in the water column.

Learn By Watching Rises

Here is an illustration from Field and Stream that shows:

1. A sipping rise to an insect trapped in or on the film, fine rings in the water = emerger, stillborn emerger, spinner, some small midges.

2. The slurping rise leaves a bubble, the fish's mouth breaks the surface to take a fully emerged insect = mayfly duns and other insects that have fully hatched.

3. The splashy rise, the fish slashes at the fly = typically a rise to caddis that can fly off immediately or a large terrestrial on the water like a grasshopper. The fish want the insect not to escape OR wants to beat another fish to the food.

4. The boil or head and shoulder rise. The water bulges but the fish's mouth does not break the water. The fish's shoulder or dorsal fin may break the water as the fish heads back down = The fish is feeding below the surface chasing nymphs or pupa that are rising in the water column to hatch. They are intercepting the food on the way to the surface and overshoot and break the surface or cause a bulge of water.

Look at the rise forms and examine them for 2 main factors.

(1) Where was the food when it was taken? ON the file, IN the film, or UNDER the film and if so, HOW FAR UNDER? If the fish is eating in or under the film, you will need to imitate that stage of emergence and I cannot cover that for you here. So do your homework and learn what hatches on the water you are fishing at the time of the season you are fishing!

(2) How energetic is the rise form. Low energy like a sip means the food is TRAPPED like a spinner, stillborn, ant, etc. A moderate energy rise in or under the film could be an early stage mayfly emerger. An energetic rise in or under the film is likely caddis emerger or a pupa rising to emerge.

In moving water, the river brings the food to the fish.

In still water the fish must cruise to find food. That means that the fish may be moving when it takes the food item. So in lakes and ponds, you need to know the direction fish is traveling so you can intercept the fish by casting ahead of the fish.

This is second part of analyzing the rise form. How do we tell from a rise, the direction of travel.

If you look carefully, the direction of travel is obvious. The ring of the rise will be ASYMMETRIC. There will be a HIGH side and a LOW side. The moving fish will PUSH the water AHEAD of his body IN THE DIRECTION of motion. Look for the asymmetry in the ring of the rise and the you will see the direction of motion. Furthermore, the FASTER the motion, the GREATER the asymmetry. So what is the direction of travel in the rise below and how fast is the fish moving?

How about slowly moving fish below? What is the direction of travel?

By knowing the direction of travel and how fast the fish is traveling we can judge where to cast our fly and how far ahead to cast our fly. Of course we can get a better idea if we intercept the fish after several rises. Then we have several “data points” to use to judge where our cast should go.

 

[smilingduck]

Welcome to the forum! I love to fish dries but on lakes I have had much better success casting toward the risers with nymphs/midges. I watch the direction fish are feeding and cast stripping in as slow possible mostly to keep tension on the line. I won’t use weighted flies so they stay close to the surface.

Welcome Tight lines!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bubber]

Thank you for all your very informative answers. I was at Monument Lake yesterday in 60's temperature, my thermostat this AM was 14º. Might warm up again later in the week so I hope to get out again. Yesterday was not productive. Some people were catching some on power bait fished on the bottom. Couldn't raise anything with drys, but did finally get a couple with Pistol Pete.
So, a couple more questions if you don't mind:
What about winter, providing the lake's not frozen (which it was partially last week, love Colorado weather). Any hope for dry fly action?
Might it be productive to try an attractor pattern, or stick to small, 18 & under?

 

[bumble54]

Most of my dry fly fishing is done on lakes, casting ahead of cruisers is one way if you judge correctly their direction of travel. Look out for fish patrolling a given area, they may travel upwind before going deeper and returning to their start point. In this instance I cast out and leave the fly stationary until I know the fish has refused it, I may then recast to a slightly different area within the fishes patrol or change to a different fly.
With fish working upwind in a good ripple a buoyant fly, such as a deer hair sedge, can sometimes be skated or twitched across their path to good effect.
There are no givens when targeting surface feeders on lakes, that is something you have to work out on any particular day and the action may last all day or for only a few minutes. They may also only be surface feeding in a small area and nowhere else on the lake so constantly moving and searching for feeding fish is a must for me.
One point I would emphasize is that casting slightly upwind, as you would cast upstream on a river, can make all the difference between a take or a refusal when fishing a dry fly dead drift on lakes.

 

[bevanwj]

On still waters a good way to hedge your bets is to fish a small unweighted nymph on a short dropper tied to the bend of the dry. If they are not feeding directly on the surface they will often take the dropper.

 

[Matt4.0]

Welcome bubber. I just started targeting stillwater in Colorado the last couple summers. One thing you’ll learn quickly is that while windless conditions make for very comfortable fishing, they don’t typically provide great catching. In my experience this applies to both dry and sub-surface flies, but more so with dries. I’ve spent too many hours watching fish rise all around me on a windless morning, trying every dry in my box with no luck. Glass-like surface conditions just give the fish too much time and clarity to see your tippet near the fly (at least that’s my theory). Even my favorite stillwater rig of a chironomid with a balanced leech below it are slow in these conditions, so I’ll typically throw on a streamer and try to find a willing participant a little deeper.

Now when a little wind picks up things can get get fun! The chop makes your tippet harder to see on a dry, and adds some enticing movement to subsurface flies below an indicator rig. (Especially with a balanced leech...did I mention that already?)

Finally, you said you’re fishing from shore... if you haven’t already, you might think about picking up a belly boat/pontoon/etc next summer. Opens up a ton of water for a fly fisher even without going to far on the lake as you eliminate all the casting obstructions typically found on the shore. Prices are all over the place as with anything fly-fishing related, but you can find one for almost any budget, especially if you buy used on Craigslist or the like.

 

[justahack]

Hey bubber,

You have received some very good general advice in this thread. I’ll add that those metro area lakes are pretty much put and take. The stocked trout get fished out most years with very few holdovers. Most of those tanks do support holdover bass, cats, perch and walleye, however. Fish a squirmy or micro leech for those. If you are after trout, look a little higher in the foothills and follow the advice in this thread. In spring, those higher lakes fish great with chironomids and damsel nymphs. In summer go deep with scuds or stay on top with ants and beetles, twitched every now and then. The park reservoirs are awesome for calibaetis mid summer. I like to fish under cali hatches with something like a Mercer’s poxyback or schroeders nymph. Caddis hatches on overcast days and in the evenings are a lot of fun. I skate big hackleless hairwing bugs to imitate the traveling sedges that scamper about until their wings are dry enough for liftoff. I cast those flies out as far as I can and rip them back across the surface like a floating streamer. Takes are awesome. Micro caddis that hatch through the day are less fun. I chase them with nymphs that also pass for chironomid pupae. I fish stillwater a lot in the spring, summer, and fall. I fish tail waters, tie flies, and go skiing in winter.

 

[jdwy]

On still waters a good way to hedge your bets is to fish a small unweighted nymph on a short dropper tied to the bend of the dry. If they are not feeding directly on the surface they will often take the dropper.

Just going to add that. The last 2 or 3 trout I've caught were with a foam hopper and a #20 Zebra Midge on a dropper 18" below it.

 

[trev]

I used to fish midges almost exclusively on eastern still waters. An unweighted size 20-24 any fly on a mono tippet is essentially a dry fly on still water, but we used very short strips to give them life and keep them in the film.

 

[bubber]

Thanks for your responses, they helped. I went out yesterday and caught plenty of stockers (I know) on drys. Casting mostly toward rises. Interesting sidelight: small, dainty flies were ignored, switched to a larger attractor pattern and immediately started getting hits. I've done the same thing on streams and it has often worked for me.

 

[losthwy]

I don't know if you are fishing from shore or floating. I do a fair amount of lake fishing from a kayak. Very little dry fly fishing. Most of the time I have two midge patterns (NO weight on) and let out about 30-40 feet of line and slowly drift and fish the film/just below the surface. It's usually very productive. Also I fish from the shore using one beachhead and a midge with a hand twist. Consider doing a hopper/dropper, midge pattern. The primary food source in mountain lakes are midges.

 

[lue]

Try this book; Stillwaters Simplified: 7 lessons by Tim Lockhart