Lake Lenice and Catching Up

Life has been crazy for the past few months with lots of work and a one year old and a two and half year old to keep us busy.  We have actually been fishing quite a bit, but the posting on the blog has obviously been lacking!  This spring we have been all over: half a dozen trips to Lake Lenice, opening day at Dry Falls lake, a three day trip to the Deschutes river, Rocky Ford Sprring Creek, and I caught the four biggest largemouth of my life on spinning gear (on the same day)!  In the process I have caught a brown trout, a tiger trout, my first two bull trout, largemouth bass, bluegill, perch, and LOTS of rainbows!  I may add some of those pictures later.  For now, I'll fill you in on my latest trip to Lake Lenice.

Friday, May 30, 2014 - Lake Lenice

I like to get home from my local fishing trips by mid-afternoon, so I can see the kiddos when they get up from their naps.  The problem with my "local" lake is that by the time I get there, get my pontoon set up and get my rods rigged, it is over two hours from the time I leave home.  It takes just as long to get back.  To get a good jump, I was on the road at six o'clock and battling the swarms of mosquitos on the boat launch by 8:15.  I have been bringing two rigged rods, one with a type III sinking line and a leech, and one with a slip indicator and three chironomids in tandem. 

First fish of the day - a great way to start things off!

I started trolling across the lake with the leech and within the first twenty seconds was tight into a nice 17"+ rainbow.  I quickly brought him in, snapped a couple pictures, and smiled.  This might be a good day!  I caught fish like clockwork on the leech every twenty minutes for the next two hours.  A couple of the fish were nice, but I never felt like I really got dialed in.  After that, the action slowed down.  I had pumped the stomach of a couple fish from earlier, and they were eating mostly small (#22ish) olive chironomids, olive (#10ish) damselfly nymphs, a couple caddis casings, and some woody debris!  The damselflies turned out to be interesting as fish took the adults out of the air in the early afternoon.

A nice rainbow from the 15 minute flurry.

I tried my chironomid rod on and off for the total of probably an hour.  I had one takedown, but I lost the fish due to a bent hook.  Finally I went back to my leech rod.  I have been using simiseal leeches all spring with phenomenal success.  At this point I added a smaller, black bouface (pattern by John Barr - just a phenomenal pattern).  I figured the larger semiseal leech would attract the fish from a distance, and the smaller bouface would get them to eat.  Whether or not that is how it worked, it got hot for 15 minutes and I caught five fish back to back - three of them were 17-18 inchers.  Then, like a light switch, they were gone.  I kicked around the lake for another hour and have, only picking up one small fish, and decided to head in for the day.

Bent hook - urgh!

Lesson Learned:
As I was rigging up I got out a used #16 black snowcone chironomid that I have been having a lot of success with.  I have more in my box, but I just grabbed the one from the last trip.  I noticed that the hook was a bit opened, but I just pushed it in and tied it on.  I didn't think anything of it.  That was until I lost the only fish that I hooked on the chironomid rig.  The fish was good sized, maybe 16 inches, but nothing huge for sure.  As I checked my hooks, I was disgusted - he had straightened that hook.  Luckily I caught plenty of fish and this was not one for the record books.  It bothered me, however, that this was something that I had noticed and ignored.  Imagine if this had been a 24" monster instead of an average rainbow.  Lesson learned.  No more starting with compromised hooks for me!