Whenever we think to ourselves “It can’t stay this good all season”, we are happily proven wrong. The lake continues to fish well this week, at least on the overcast and stormy days.

When the fish begin to come in shallow and school up in their pre-spawn behavior, the storm systems will be far less important, and the fishing will be good most days. Typically, these fish enter pre-spawn in April. Until then, when we have a high-pressure system, expect the bite to be tough. On bright and sunny days, your best bet is to fish the river. When there is a low-pressure system pushing through, more times than not you can expect some great fishing out here. Especially after it’s been a few days of weather, and the fish have had some time to adjust. Remember, just as much as they don’t like high sun, trout also don’t like change, they much prefer consistent conditions. The day of a dropping barometric pressure is typically not going to be as good as once it has dropped and stabilized for a day or two.

We have been almost exclusively fishing midges over the last few weeks, and leeches will likely be relevant when fishing a significant drop off, or when the waves are quite large. We have been finding fish in close and somewhat shallow first thing in the morning and as the day progresses, we are setting our flies deeper and moving further out. The size of your midge should depend more on how much of a profile you are looking for and how much weight is needed to stay anchored in the waves. On the calm days we are fishing size 12-14’s and on the choppy days, a size 10 with a larger tungsten bead to keep us in the strike zone.

Overcast days can keep the fish in range of shore anglers most of the day, while the sunny days out here will really limit the bite window to first thing in the morning and possibly again in the afternoon. The strip bite has slowly been getting better, and this should really pick up once the fish begin their schooling behavior in a few weeks. Until then your best bet will be fishing the little guys under an indicator and waiting for a fish to swim by.