May 21, 2023
Sunday opened up and I was lucky enough to take the day to chase some trout. Some of my favorite lakes in the area are finally ice-free and fishing well, so I decided to try my luck fishing some Stillwater. Spoiler alert, it did not disappoint.
I’ve grown to love fishing alone over the past few years. The solitude, freedom, and fishing on my terms is such a rewarding experience. I planned to fish alone this day, but a long-time fishing buddy was already on the lake for the weekend. I couldn’t pass up a day fishing off his motorboat. We have had some amazing trips over the years and as I approached the lake in the morning, it just felt right to give him a call.
We got on the lake as the sun rose over the surrounding mountain ranges at about 7 AM. Gliding across the calm lake on a late spring day in Yellowstone Country was an incredible experience. I mentioned to Lane (long-time fishing buddy) how our younger selves wouldn’t believe we would be fishing off a motorboat on one of our favorite lakes five years after we met. A lot has changed since we first started fishing together through the fly fishing club at MSU, but we have managed some amazing adventures over the years. It was a special moment with a good friend.
Lane had caught a few fish the day before, but as fly fishing goes, each day presents a new equation you must work to solve. We arrived at a rock point I’ve had success from in the past. The lake was surprisingly calm for a day in late May, and not exactly what any stillwater angler asks for when thinking of ideal conditions.
We spent the morning using floating line techniques suspending our flies under an indicator. We were fishing 8 to 12 ft of water matching our suspended flies to the depth. A few fish were fooled, mainly by balanced leeches. The lake was dead calm the entire morning which did not give our suspended flies much action in the water, but a few gorgeous fish cooperated and started the day off right.
As the day got warmer and the sun grew higher, the bobber fishing slowed. We each switched to stripping techniques with which we are less experienced. I fished an intermediate line with leeches and Lane fished a full sinking line with foam-style booby flies. This didn’t create much more fishing action, though it did fool a few more fish than the bobber had over the last hour. I hooked four on a very slow retrieve and dialed them in eating a size 8 olive leech/bugger pattern.
Feeling the line slowly tighten as the fish took the fly was an awesome experience. Watching a bobber shoot down in a lake is special, but slowly moving your flies along the bottom and feeling a fish pick it up was just as satisfying. I look forward to developing my skills on lakes using a variety of stripping techniques.
By midday, we needed a change. Not that we couldn’t keep catching fish in that location, but we were looking for a change of scenery and a boost in energy. The fishing just wasn’t consistent enough to make us stay and we were all in for exploring. We shot across the lake looking for an area to spend the afternoon. After a 10-minute boat ride and the cold wind waking us up, we found another bay that Lane had success the previous day. The vibe was positive as there was a slight chop to the surface and a steep drop-off that we figured was great holding water for trout in the high sun.
Sure enough, we found fish. We each hooked into a few fat, feisty rainbows on chironomid and balanced leech patterns. The best part of the day was how hard fighting the lake fish were, especially the rainbows. No matter the size, each fish put on a show making many incredible leaps and pulling drag. Every fish seemed to have us laughing and screaming as they did their acrobats through the water. You had to be on your game when landing the fish as they made many runs away and back toward the boat. A few fish were lost as we couldn’t keep the line tight as the fish shot toward the boat and into the air. Such a blast.
After a few hours, the wind picked up and we made our way back to our starting location to see if the wind stirred up better fishing. While Lane got a solid rainbow, we struggled to find many fish. We decided to spend the last bit of the day playing around the boat ramp. This ended up being a great choice.
We anchored in about six feet of water in a relatively tight channel for the lake. I was skeptical at first due to the shallow water and a somewhat muddy color the water had. My skepticism quickly changed as our bobbers started going down left and right. The next 20 minutes made for some unbelievable lake fishing, where it seemed as if every cast one of our bobbers went down. It was an exhilarating time playing the hard fighting rainbows and watching your bobber with intense anticipation. A few nice-sized browns came to the net as well that were a silvery shade from being in the lake. We were blessed to find these fish in shallow water and had a hoot landing nice fish after nice fish. I’d estimate we each landed 5 to 7 fish during this time frame.
As time went on the fishing slowed and it was longer and longer between fish. Maybe the fish caught on to our hollering, or the bite just turned off. Whatever happened it obviously slowed, and we made our way to the takeout around 7 pm. A full 12-hour day fishing together was exactly what we needed on our Sunday off.
Overall, another great day fishing in Yellowstone Country. Yeah, we had a few minor boat problems and slow fishing periods throughout the day, but we won’t remember that when planning our spring trips next year. I hope you can take advantage of some of the amazing Stillwater fishing we have in our area and let me know how it goes!
My Setup
I am relatively picky about my lake setups as I believe the small details count when targeting fish in deeper water. I won’t go into too much detail on my lake setups here but will save it for a future article.
I fish a 10-foot 6wt Echo E3 exclusively for indicator techniques on lakes. The longer rod is a game changer when picking up fly line off the water. I paired this rod with a Scientific Anglers 6wt infinity taper. I use a level leader below 3 feet of 20 lb. maxima chameleon. This day I have about 8 feet of 3x fluorocarbon down to a micro swivel. Here I attached a variety of wine chironomid patterns on a 3-inch tag. I then dropped another 18 inches from the swivel a balanced leech that provided the weight the leader needs to stay vertical below the indicator.
I used my 9-foot 6wt Sage Pulse paired with a Scientific Anglers Sonar Stillwater Clear Camo intermediate fly line for my stripping setup. It was my first time fishing this line and I was very impressed. I experimented with a short 12 lb. butt section to a micro swivel, followed by 5 feet of 3x tippet. Halfway through the tippet I placed a triple surgeon’s knot where I tied an olive bugger on a tag. A few feet behind the bugger I used a variety of simi seal leeches.
The top flies of the day included a bruised simi seal balanced leech (size 8 or 10), a red with white bead chironomid (size 16 depending on the hook), and a micro chenille olive bugger (size 8). We experimented with a few other colors of leeches and fooled a few fish on those. Other color combos included black and purple as well as black and green.
What Did I Learn?
On my first stillwater adventure of 2023, I learned that stripping flies can be just as effective as indicator techniques. Given you know what you’re doing, which I rarely do. I have always struggled when trying to strip flies in our local still waters. This could be because of a multitude of reasons. My lack of patience when trying to slowly strip flies on an intermediate line is a major contributor. I’ve historically found myself stripping my flies of what I think is too fast for the leeches, chironomids, and scuds I usually imitate.
Another reason I believe have struggled is due to the watercraft I usually fish out of. I am usually fishing still waters out of an 8ft pontoon boat where I use flippers to keep myself in place. The flippers are very helpful, but staying in place long enough for my flies to sink and slowly strip them back to me is hard. This causes unnatural movement and less contact with my flies. On this trip, we were able to stay in the same spot with the trolling motor, and I believe this helped with my effectiveness.
Stripping flies seemed to give my flies great action when the lake’s surface was dead calm. I was able to fish the flies at multiple depths by changing the amount of time I counted my flies down, and I consciously reminded myself to keep a slow retrieve. This led to four fish in an hour when I only hooked three that morning on the indicator rig.
It was a great experience to experiment with a new technique to me. I look forward to catching more fish using a stripping retrieve in the future. I would love to hear your experiences and tips when it comes to stillwater fishing with sinking lines.
What Left Me Curious?
Now that I have seen the potential of stripping flies on sinking lines, I wonder what my options are for different retrieves. Phil Rowley (well-known stillwater fly fisher) stresses the importance of the retrieve when dialing in a stillwater fishery. His hierarchy of importance when finding fish starts with depth being the most important, retrieve second, and fly last. He calls it the DRP method.
What are my many options of retrieves I can vary to see what the fish react to? I have heard a few names of retrieve styles thrown around and always guess when I’m on the lake. I usually slowly wrap the line in a figure eight around my fingers when looking for a slow retrieve, but that’s all I seem to have in my arsenal. I plan to research some other retrieve options and be more tactical in when and why I use certain retrieves based on conditions and food sources. Maybe I’ll take what I learn and write an article about it in the future.
