Hi all, I fished Stoney Lake this last weekend. The food and accomodations were better than the fishing. I thought I slipped the fishing jinx this year but it comes back every once in a while. I used mostly chironimids as that was the only activity I spotted.. Big red ones coming off with a smattering of little green ones about an #18. The red ones were about a #10. I went up with only three of the larger silverbodied chironimids (chromies) in my box as I forgot to tie more on earlier trips. Turned out the #10 chromies were the ones that got most of the hits. I started out fishing them with my 3wt and the fly suspended about 4 feet down under an indicator. They weren't bashful about taking that fly as I was testing two different flies out on different rods and one time I had a yank on the rod I wasn't holding and if I didn't have the reel hung over the far side of the boat, it would have gone over the side. Don't see how a fish can grab a fly that hard and not hook himself, but that was what happened. The results of the next hour were just about all the hits were on the chromie. The 3 wt was a little light, or maybe I should say the drag on that reel was a little light as two fish grabbed the fly, took off and the next thing I knew, I was flyless. I only had 3 of those flies and after a 15 minute period, I was left with just one and no fly tying gear with me to tie more. I managed to hold on to that last one throughout the next two days and had some more strikes on it. Water temperature up there varied between 55 and 59 degrees and the bite should have been on. Guess my "jinx" came with me this trip. Ended up landing 3, breaking off two and one was big judging how my reel just screamed, missed about another dozen strikes. That's for the first two days. The third day I gave a guy some red leech flies and he went out and nailed 6 on them. I went with a full sinker that day and a maroon wooley bugger. A pretty good wind had come up and after breakfast it was hard to control the boat and fish at the same time for me. I ended up catching another fair trout before I decided I didn't want to fight the wind anymore. I started rowing back to the launch to load the boat and head home and noticed a black bear eating grass about 75 yards from the launch. He left while I was loading my boat as I wanted to see how close I could get to him. I hope it was grass he was eating and not the remains of the last nosey fisherman. Bill Warner
