My wife and I hiked up to Sunday Lake on Friday to find that the water
levels are WAY DOWN (duh!), but the fish are still just as accomodating.
Water is so low that the outflow creek is dried up and the lake is about
1/3 its normal size (unless you count the mudflats around it).
Fortunately, there are some deeper sections to the lake, and the water
temp was in the low 60's. We got there too late to fish Friday nite and
it rained on us most of Saturday, but we braved the wet and the bogs to
get to the main part of the lake. Many, many beautiful coastal cutts in
the 8-13" range. All were eager for the secret fly (the one with a hook
on it!). Seriously, they would take anything under the surface or on the
surface. We fished intermediate lines with buggers, damsel nymphs, GRHE,
Prince nymphs, heck they even liked my big blue damsel dryfly!
It cleared up on Saturday afternoon through Sunday (gave us a chance to
dry out the wet clothes), but then rained again Sunday nite through Monday
morning (Lord, how I hate breaking down camp in the rain!). All in all,
it was a very good trip. Probably my last 50 fish weekend of the season.
Quite a few rafting hardware crankers for such a tiny lake. There was
only one other flyfisherman up there. It was all they could do to keep
themselves from coming over and seeing what I was using (which I wouldn't
have told 'em, 'cause they were killing fish). Fortunately, the season is
winding down, so the fish killing crowd will be less likely to pressure
this beautiful gem of a high-country lake. Couple that with lack of water
in the outflow stream for spawning, and next year might not be as good.
Go enjoy it while you can.
I did hook and bring to the tube a large specimen which I'd estimate went
about 17", (he spit the fly just as I was grabbing the leader - perfect
C&R) so there are some bigguns in here. Interesting how the 13" trout
were so acrobatic, but this big guy fought more like a brookie - straight
down...
Tight lines and loose drags...
Sean
