It’s been a great week up at Tunkwa! For the most part, the weather has vastly improved, the chironomids have been hatching hard, and the trout have been ON!!!!! Lots of happy guests, hooking into lots of trout.
The water has really cleared up, and surface temps have been hitting around 52*F mid-day. Chironomids have been hatching all over the lake, with the e\best action happening in 10′ or less of water, prime time 10:30am -4:30pm. The clear water has the really shallow fish a bit spooky, so one needs to stay off a good casting distance away from them. The trout are really in schools of similar sized fish, if your constantly into smaller trout, keep moving and look for the larger ones showing themselves, set up on them, when they move, don’t be afraid to move and follow them. Many guests have been reporting a good number of 20+” trout, with the biggest last week at 26″. Quite a few of our long time regular guests(some of them fishing Tunkwa at this time of the year, for almost 3 decades) are commenting how great the fish are this year, bigger, brighter and more numbers then they’ve ever seen!
Fishing a chironomid under an indicator is the way to go right now, fly size seems to be the most important factor, more so then the pattern, in size 16’s, and the occasional size 14. Patterns that are really producing well the past few days are the ‘Terminators'(olive green body/red butt) Black/silver red-butt, Blu-Gnu or anything ‘shiny’ with red or brown rib( ASB, chromies, gun metals). Seems like patterns using a white bead head, are not cutting it(perhaps due to the water clarity?), touching up the white bead with a black sharpy marker, cures that problem quickly!
Non fly-fishing guests, have been in the store getting set up with slip floats, or smaller bobbers, and fishing the same chironomids flies under them, are having great success, waaaayyyyy out fishing live worms!
Some trout are being caught trolling. Wedding bands tipped with a piece of worm, or Bingo Bugs, a small split shot placed about 18″ ahead of either, helps get it down a bit, where the trout are.
Weather forecast this week is looking incredible, a great time to get out here and fish!
See you on the water!
Couple of nice ones landed by Brandon this past weekend..