After 9 days of trout fishing in the hot and beautiful eastern half of the state its good to be home. Oh oh I see another virus has infiltrated our peaceful sanctuary. Chopaka was definitely late on the hatches this year although they were picking up while I was there from a week ago last Thursday to Monday night. fairly slow chironomid fishing the first two days then picked up after the afternoon of winds. By Monday the Calibaetis were coming off in good numbers and had a great couple of hours on dries. Size 12 brown worked without refusal during the hatch.Oh Yes!Chopaka has gotton way to crowded for me though this time of year. When I had arrived on Thursday afternoon there were already close to a hundred people there camping,on Thursday! It was a hard decision to leave that for the desert lakes but it was worth every minute after I arrived at Lenice. Basically had the lake to myself Tues. and Wed. Both were extremely hot temperature wise, about 100 degrees,Yikes. The fishing was slow at best, till I started chirono fishing in the deepest parts. Then we went from the slow lane to the autobahn, it was fantastic. After two 25-30 fish days of doing this, it was time to try adult damsels in the reeds. A much slower go at this game although I did get three fish to the net with blue adults. Damsels are starting to come off in larger numbers but we are still probably a week away before things bust loose over there. It will be hard to get over there again with north sound rivers opening up next weekend but I'm sure the dry flies will be calling again soon.
