Being a neophyte, I need some advice. I have been fishing warm water but would like to try a local impoundment that has been stocked with trout for winter fishing. my very limited trout fishing experience has been on very small streams.
On a 100 acre park lake, where would one try to find the recently stocked trout and what flies would be most productive?
Depends how far behind the “stock” truck you are.
We have always been well entertained tossing some pea-gravel right behind the truck and watching the “feeding frenzy” errupt. Any bug will work then, though it is not on our agenda to pester them then.
It does seem to take them a bit to figure out what is “food” and small woolybuggers seem adequate for some time.
I suspect that their curiosity and experimentation would make just about any moving object subject to some degree of acceptance.
…lee s.
GLO BUGS! brighter the better! nothing beats them on stockers!
But if they’ve been in a while, put a trailing nymph behind it…this is all I fish really! Beadhead pheasant tails and hares ears are the standard.
In the put-and-take lakes around me, what seems to work the best is to bounce a wooly bugger (black, brown or olive) very slowly, across the bottom of the deepest part of the lake. That works the best for everyone around me. Nothin works for me.
Behold, I stand at the door and Knock… REV 3:20
I need to find a way to keep the stockers off my line near my house in the summer there are a zillion of them. Everything works but they seem to really like larger sized red copper johns, like a size 12.
Wow. Thanks for the great information!
I am really intrigued by the counter-clockwise cruising habit. Something to study for sure.
Soda,
I just went out to one of the locally stocked lakes here in K.C.,MO and did great with little real effort. I found out the lake was just stocked yesterday afternoon and so I figured I might have trouble getting into any trout since they might be a bit skittish. I started out near the dam on the north-west corner of the lake without even so much as a nibble. Then decided to move to the norht-east corner to pester some bluegills, usually thick on this corner. The first fish on made me think of a bass, until it began to really run and shake! It was a bow about 10" long. The second fish on was a large gill, he went back to grow until spring when I’ll go after him again. I got another trout then began to miss and lose the fish, I switched to a new fly (forgot my hook sharpener) and began catching again to finish with the daily limit of 4.
I was using a size 12 wooly worm, blue body with brown hackle and black thread. Casting an 8’ 5/6 wt with WF6F and 3X tippet. I think these trout are a bit ahead of their peers, I swear they were rising to take insects. I imagine they learn that in the stock pools, it just seemed they wouldn’t start right away. When I left it was just after dark (5:30 pm) and the lake was beginning to really get busy with the rises. The wind was coming out of the south-west at maybe 5-10 mph. It wasn’t really cold wind, but after landing fish my wet hands were becoming very cold.
The MO Dept. of Conservation (MDC) published an article on fishing stockers in lakes here in MO, it helped me to know dark colored woolly worms/buggers are good flies and the stockers like rocky dams/shorelines and tend to stay about 18" deep (waiting to be fed by the hatchery employees). Stay with smaller tippets (about 2 lbs test) and don’t use overly large strike indicators. The dark colored flies work well as they resemble the hatchery food.
Good luck! And Enjoy!!!
There’s almost nothin’ wrong with the first lie, it’s the weight of all the others holdin’ it up that gets ya’! - Tim
Gold ribbed hare’s ears in the larger sizes seem to work great for these short time off the truck fish. Once they wise up carey specials and wooley buggers produce in our area. I theorize that the hare’s ear imitates the pellets they are used to feeding on. I fish them on an intermediate line.