Kootenay Lake Fishing ~ May 16, 2020
Our day fishing started around 9:00 am. It was an overcast day with 10km/h winds for the majority of the time we were out. The morning started off slow with only a couple to the boat in the first hour or so, as we expected due to the cold water temperatures of the morning sitting around 44°F (6.7° C). By 10:30 we noticed things were picking up as we were now getting fish almost back to back, with a couple of doubleheaders mixed in. It seems as though every time we have gone out fishing this spring, we end up finding a different hot fly for that day, most of which are very different patterns to one another. Today we started with a couple of our go-to patterns #H21, #H26, and #H15. After catching our first 4 fish with the #H15 (aka The Grey Ghost) we decided to run 2 of them, and also gave #28 a shot. By 2:00 that day it was clear the Grey Ghost had been the most productive bucktail fly that day. With the water temperature now closer to 50°F (10°C), we were able to leave the bays a bit always following the water that wasn't glass-calm, which was very uncommon that day unless you moved to a sheltered area. We weren't seeing many Black Ants on the water, therefore we stayed away from our black/gold Bucktails. With the bite slowing down after 3:00 pm we decided to throw out a #12, it's just a Grey Ghost but with a blue back instead of the Grey, and a slightly different flash. This change with a little more colour matched the brighter sky leaking through the clouds, and lead to us catching more fish on it than the Grey Ghost. Finishing the day with a total of 26 fish, mostly rainbows with a few kokanees mixed in, it was a pretty typical day for us compared to our last trips these past few weeks. Larger fish were non-existent today as per usual, all fish being 1-3 lbs, and that fish that was definitely at least 5lbs that "just had to get away". Our ideal speed today was between 2.8 and 3.4 mph, and never noticed a difference whether we were going into the wind or not. As the temperature continues to rise, hopefully soon we will start to see larger hatches of black ants with tons of feeding fish, and hopefully some 30+ fish days ;-)
Best fishes,
Callum Cutler