Went to Morgan Lake with friend Shawn Proznick on this somewhat blustery day. We had been planning the day for a week or so. Shawn was getting cabin fever, made worse by the fact that he got a new fly fishing combo late last year and was just dying to try it out.

We arrived in the area just before 3 o'clock. We drove by 6 Mile lake and no one was on it... there was a chop on the lake and the east wind was whipping up a froth. So we decided to move on to Morgan lake where I figured we could find some cover.

We arrived at the east end of Morgan and there were 3 vehicles. The boats were all huddled in the flats about 150 yards out from boat launch. We could see some vehicles at the other end of lake. Considering it was an east wind, we decided to head to the west launch so that at the end of the day we didn't have to work as hard to get the boat back to the launch. Turns out that it was a good decision.

The west end launch was crowded too. There were 4 vehicles and 3 of the fishermen decided to come off the water at the same time we arrived. So we waited. We talked to one guy who was up from Vernon. He said that he had pretty good luck on "pumpkin heads" although the wind had been strong all day.

We hooked up 2 rods each, one sinking and one dry line.

With the wind in our face we head to the north shore of the lake and dragged our wet lines with booby fly patterns attached. At mid lake (just east of the rock faces) I hit my first fish. It was about 14" with a nice red stripe. We continued to the east end of the lake, turned around and came down the same side of the lake, this time drifting in the wind. I hit my second fish in the same general area. I was using a Green Marabou and White Booby Fly with black boobies and a white head, something I tied up this past winter, mimicking a similar fly that my friend Kevin McGuire from Ireland showed me on their visit to Roche Lake.


Enough of the trolling. We tucked into the bay at mid-lake/north side to get out of the wind and pulled out the dry lines. On our first set-up I promptly had my cast influence by the wind and got my line caught up in a tree. I hate that. After pulling anchors and retrieving the fly we set up again in the bay, this time in a little more open area.

Until I asked, I did not realize that this was Shawn's first "fly fishing" experience. He was actually doing not bad on the casting (apparently he had been practicing on dry line over the winter) even though I complicated things by adding a strike indicator to his line.

We started off using chironomids but with no luck at all we changed over to micro-leeches. I had a green one with an orange bead head and he had a black and red with a red bead head. We beat the water for about an hour and finally Shawn saw his indicator disappear from the surface. Lifting his rod tip, he hooked his fish and stripped in. It was his first fish on a fly rod.

We flogged a little more but the sun had dipped below the horizon and the wind wasn't subsiding. With little disagreement, we decided to pull up anchor, drift to the west end and finally get off the water.

It was a good afternoon although the fish were scarce. It was good to see Shawn get his first fish on a fly rod... next quest for him... catching his first fish on his own hand-tied fly

General Conditions - stiff east wind, 12C, water was cloudy (perhaps getting near the spring turn) and 39F to 40F. New Moon, mostly cloudy.