FISHING A LAKE AFTER BREAKUP
Bernie’s quest for ice-out on lakes in Montana
goes from early May through early August roughly
ninety days. He’s generally in the high country
for sixty out of the ninety days. In that time
he fishes about 10 percent partial clearing, 2
percent breakup, and 88 percent post-breakup
conditions.
I don’t push into the high country as early as
Bernie does and my percentage of post-breakup
days is probably around 98 percent. With the
post-breakup period I begin the stalking and
hatch-matching strategies. This is when I search
not just for feeding fish, but for the largest
fish feeding in a particular body of water.
High-mountain lakes aren’t very complex
environments. My stomach samplings put
trout and grayling into one of three
feeding groups during the post-breakup
period:
- Trout cruising and searching the surface
for random food.
Forget them, after breakup these cruisers are
almost always small trout. During the non-hatch
periods there isn’t much littering the surface,
usually just a scattering of adult midges, and
this isn’t enough to get bigger fish searching
the surface. The daily, predictable dumping of
terrestrial insects onto the water won’t start
for nearly a month. In the post-breakup period
terrestrials constitute roughly 20 percent of
the trout’s diet, and in the first few days
after ice-out it’s probably less.
- Trout cruising and searching the bottom for food.
Trout and grayling cruise the littoral zone
of the lake singly or in schools looking for
active, exposed nymphs. This feeding activity
occurs a lot during the post-break-up period
because aquatic insects begin migrating from
deeper water into the shallows as soon as the
ice disappears.
The standard slog-and-flog technique will
work throw out a sinking fly, let it settle,
and retrieve it, over and over again. But
this blind casting is boring. It’s not my
game, and it doesn’t have to be the game
for any intelligent fly fisherman.
The movement of the fish isn’t random. The
swimming speed of either individual or
schooling fish frequently correlates to the
amount of available food in a particular
lake. If there are weeds, and abundant nymphs,
the fish move slowly. Most high-mountain lakes
aren’t like this they have boulder or mud
bottoms, and populations of larger aquatic
insects are sparse. The fish move quickly,
covering a lot of area.
My first experience with deep cruisers was in
1970 at Park Lake above Helena [MT]. My teacher
for western fly fishing tactics, Dick Fryhover,
took me out nearly every day that summer to a
different spot; and this was my first experience
with high-country stillwaters.
I stumbled onto a tactical discovery that day,
one that has meant hundreds of additional trout
and grayling for me from lakes over the years,
and recorded it in my log book:
Nobody was catching grayling, but standing on
the rock, I was high enough to see the schools
of twenty or thirty fish swim past. The problem
was that they were swimming so deep and fast
that by the time I saw them it was too late
to cast to them.They seemed to be on a schedule. Every five
minutes or so a school followed the same path.
Whether it was the same school or not, I wasn’t
sure. I cast out a Montana Stone nymph and let
it sink slowly six to eight feet, hoping to
time it to the movement of the school. They
came in so quick that I didn’t have a chance
to even start a retrieve. A grayling of about
13 inches, took the fly and the line tip jumped.I timed the next three passes better and even
had enough warning to start a retrieve, but I
never even had a hit. On my fifth cast I didn’t
retrieve (again) and wham! a grayling took the
dead, sinking fly.
I kept playing with this all day and a slow
retrieve out-fished a quick retrieve 4 to 1
and no retrieve outfished a slow retrieve
four to one.
In my fishing log I underlined that didn’t
three times it was a lesson I wanted to
remember. There are a few special retrieves
I use in stillwaters, along with a few standard
ones, but if anything I’m a specialist at not
moving a fly nymph, dry, wet, or streamer on
lakes.
The secret to catching cruisers is to see
them and then time the pattern of their
movement. Even if the surface is a little
choppy, it’s possible to spot fish if you
are high enough. This means you at least
need to stand on shore or on top of a rock
to get a vantage point.
- Trout feeding on emerging midges.
Once the ice goes out on lakes, most aquatic
insects caddisflies, mayflies, stoneflies,
damselflies won’t start hatching for at least
a few weeks. This is just as true on valley
lakes as it is on high-mountain lakes.
It’s not so with midges. They are ready to
pop out as soon as the first slit of open
water appears on a lake. They must have some
way of timing pupation the last spurt of growth
has to begin when the lake is still frozen over.
The freshly emerged adults crawl out on the ice
edges and the snowbanks.
Even trout in high-mountain lakes can get
fussy about imitation when they feed on
emerging midges day after day. My favorite
flies, fished in tandem, are an Improved
Buzz Ball and a Halo Midge Emerger. The
Buzz Ball, matching a mating cluster of
adults, provides visibility and functions
as a strike indicator. The Halo Midge Emerger
may range from size 14 to size 24, but it’s
always black the early ice-out midges are
always black on the lakes I fish.
I tie nine to twelve inches of monofilament
into the eye of the Buzz Ball and dangle the
Halo Midge Emerger off the back, greasing both
flies with floatant. I cast into the middle
of the rising fish and let the flies sit there.
This can be nerve-racking when rolling trout
are slopping like pigs at a trough, but even
the slowest retrieve won’t help and will
probably hurt chances of a hookup.
Not all parts of a lake get the same number
of emerging midges. The early season hatches
are thickest in flat, shallow areas. Broad
bays, especially if there is a dark bottom
that warms in the sun, usually prove best.
The outlet shelf, where the current gathers,
and the silty, alluvial fan of the inlet
often produce good hatches, also.
Unlike Bernie Samuelson, most people don’t
have the time like to search and chart the
ice-out succession of high-mountain lakes
ever higher through the early season. Most
don’t even have the time to hike once or
twice a week into the high country. For the
backpacking angler, however, hitting these
waters at or close to breakup is still the
key to fabulous fly fishing.
There is a shortcut. I found the perfect one.
I had a pilot fly me over the Bitterroot-Selway
Wilderness Area last spring. He swung low over
various lakes while I found names on a
topographical map. In half an hour I knew if
a dozen waters were still frozen, completely
ice free, partially open, or even, from the
look of the ice, about to break up.
You don’t have to fly over an area yourself
(although it’s a nice luxury). You just have
to talk to airplane and helicopter pilots who
regularly cover an area. At one of our local
hospitals there’s a life-flight helicopter;
and two of the regular people on the flights
are fly fishermen. They gladly chart lakes
for me. Out here the majority of people are
fishermen, and all of them like to look at
mountain waters. ~ GL
To be continued, next time: PRIMING ON THE VALLEY LAKES
Originally published April 11th, 2005 on Fly Anglers Online by Gary LaFontaine.