How do u fish a normally bass/bluegill lake 4 stocked trout?

[fishinnstudyin]

I'm visiting my girlfriend who lives in Columbia, MO for the weekend and there happens to be a stocked lake with rainbow trout in it. They are stocked around October and until February 1st its catch and release then its catch and keep. Now b/c of the cold winter this lake has been frozen over up till about several days ago. How do I go about fishing a lake with stocked trout? Do I use the normal nymphs or should I use streamers? I fished this lake once in the Fall and I happened to wade it. The entire lake is completely covered with vegetation in the spring summer and fall and during the winter theres still piles of weeds around the entire edge. I have used a 1/100th olive maribou jig on a float indicator placed about 3-4 below and it seems to do fairly well on the days that they are biting. does anyone else have experience with these type of lakes? streamers imitating minnows or bluegills?

maybe go to a spinning outfit and use super dupers and spinners? i dont want to but it will be a last resort if i cant get the rainbow trout to bite. from what i heard, they stocked about 1200 trout in a 2 acre lake.

[Thunderthumbs]

My favorite way, so far, is to use my float tube, my 4wt, and a conehead olive flashy wooly bugger. I tie mine with an olive colored crystal chenile, and no hackle, just a maribou tail of the same approximate color.

I also use a VERY slow retrieve. Some of my fish have been close to structure, some haven't, so I don't really know what to tell you there, I guess just fish, but slow it down considerably.

Good luck,

Thunderthumbs.

[Fly Goddess]

We too have a lake like that (and I have to mention that Henry's Lake is a shallow lake with a lot of veg. No bass, bluegill, just enormous Cutts, and Rainbows)
Anyway the lake we have here is stocked with Bluegill, and bass and recently some bucket biologist introduced crappie. I have found in the colder months that the rainbow would be more towards the surface (warmer). I use a black and purple woolley or Gartside Softhackle and have good luck with them. When it warms up I switch to Brown/Olive softhackles. I use an Intermediate line and strip slowly with a jerk, jerk added.

[Panman]

I fish a lake that they stock each spring with rainbows. I can usually catch them on the same
type flies I use for the gills - namely nymphs. You could run into a problem if you are trying to fish from the shore or by wading as the fish may be further out and deeper than you can reach. Why not take a spinning rod, an egg bobber filled with water and work along the shore until you hopefully find them and then see if it is practible to switch to the long rod.

Tim

[MikieFinn]

I fish in exactly the same conditions but no weeds.

Nymphs and streamers seem to do the trick.

Pheasant tail will work on stocked fish regardles of the season second choice would be Muddler minnow. Beadhead emergers are my go to fly - I carry 5 different colors.

If the water is cold the trick is very slow retrive but don't be afaraid to experiment. I had caught fish in very cold water by using small flashy streames when they would not even look ant nymphs.

[NderdaFilm]

How about a nice corkie? HA!!!!!! J.K.
Or is there a problem using The pellet fly on hatchery fish?

[peregrines]

fishinstudin-

First off congrats on your choice of girlfriend for letting you fish on your visit. Though it could be a trick to reel YOU in... (oops, did I say that out loud?)

You've got great advice so far as far as flies and SLOW retrieve.

Try Googling the name of the lake with something like " name map", " name topo" or "name contour" to see if there is anything out there with a map showing drop offs, inflow/outflows, deep holes, humps etc that you could fish from shore, tube or boat (if they have rentals.) A back up would be checking Google Earth to see if you can get a satellite shot, sometimes contours are visible, (if you see someone holding up a big fish mark that spot...!)

If you have a sink tip you may want to bring that too. I've had a lot of luck for early season trout using a 10 foot sink tip, short leader and a big black honking flies like Zonkers, Black Marabou Muddlers, and Black Marabou Streamers, size 4 for big trout. (Probably stocked breeders).

This was fishing from an embankment into a hole 4-15 feet deep near an outflow fishing into the lake where the water was a small current feeding into the lip of a dam. I'd cast out and count missippis or hippopotomi until I started catching fish and figured out deep they were holding, or started snagging bottom and adjusting to fish shallower. I use unweighted flies with a sink tip, and a short leader. This keeps the fly down, but helps to prevent snags since it rides above the fly line's sink tip. If I was using a floating line, I use a longer 7-9 foot leader with weighted flies to get deeper. I've had best luck with big fish in 4-10 deep water using the bigger streamers with a long wait to let the fly sink, then very short and very quick strip, long pause, quick short strip, long pause type of retrieve. It seems to trigger a very aggresive, reaction type of strike. Some of the early season stockers I've killed have had stones in their bellies, so I'm not sure they had figured out the finer points of the food web yet.

I also use nymphs and soft hackles too, with a very slow retrieve and add a twitch or too from time time to to get some attention if that isn't working, but I've had better luck on the black streamers for early season stockers for some reason. If the water was shallow I'd use a floater and try lightly weighted black streamers in size 12 or 10 first, than switch to nymphs like a PT in 14 or a 14 softhackle. I'd also want to bring some dry flies like an Early Black Stone for early season and some Parachute Adams or BWO's for the lake (hackled for moving water) in the off chance that there was a hatch going on and the fish were on them. (And if I wasn'nt catching anything, I'd rather not catch them on dry flies...)

Good luck.

Peregrines

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

A couple of things come to mind. You say the ice is just off the pond. If the pond has an inlet and/or an outlet stream you should fish near where it enters or leaves the pond.Ice limits the amount of oxygen in the ponds and the most oxygen will be in the moving water. On ponds without moving water, Winter ice limits the oxygen supply even more. Just after iceoff In these types of ponds most of it is just near the surface so you would fish the open water near to the surface.
I'd go with a Pheasant tail nymph or other such searching pattern starting with a #12 and getting smaller and smaller till it started to work.

On a really warm day in spring the midge hatches can be prolific and the trout may be keying on them.
If that stocking took place this spring, yeah a imitation of a hatchery pellet would probably work really well. (I think that is cheating a bit, but have done it. ) If the stocking was last fall and the winter was harder than usual there could be a considerable die off due to Oxygen starvation.



A bobber and worm would probably also probably work.

[Fly Goddess]

I can't believe you guys are bringing up words like "Spinning, water bubble, worms, bobber" Aaaaaaurgh!
Intermediate line on cold water....or floating.

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

I guess You girls just don't like squiggly worms like up fellows do.