6 Mile Lake Mar 23 2010

by Mr BFSH
(Kamloops)

Six Mile Lake - Late Afternoon Action with Dave

I had a brief conversation on the phone with Mike Porco at nearby Tobiano Golf Course, and he convinced me that I should get my boat up to 6 Mile Lake or Morgan Lake as soon as possible... the wind was calm and the sun was shining!.

I pondered for about 5 minutes and decided that he couldn't be more right. I wrapped up what I was doing on the ol' laptop, made something to eat and left the house at 12pm. I doubled checked this time that I had everything.

I was up at Six Mile Lake by 12:30pm and the calm water and blue sky had me convinced that I need go no further. To my discredit,I still had some snarls in my lines after taking my gear down in the dark last week. It was almost 1:30 before I hit the water.

I hooked up 3 lines... 2 dry (1 with a strike indicator) and one with a deep sinking wet line that was dedicated for a new booby pattern (burgundy/green kissing leech with black boobies). I was noticing that no one was catching much while I was gearing up so I wasn't in much of a hurry... and the afternoon solunar feed period (minor) was scheduled for 2pm to 3pm.

As I trolled my wet line through the shallows I had 2 light hits but nothing to the boat. When I got out of the shallows and into the deeper water my fish finder was telling me that the fish were sitting between 10' and 12' under the surface, in 15'-16' of water and they seemed to be in schools. When I finally anchored they seemed to come and go on the finder.

Well, I got one fish near the end of the feed period on the booby fly but not much else was happening. There had been a light breeze from the east during the afternoon but as time passed, so did the breeze. When the water started to glass out, the fish started to occasionally rise. There were a few boats on the lake... a couple of trolling boats and about 4 or 5 fly casters.

The fish got active in the shallow bay just out from the first boat launch. We all were getting smaller fish and then a few larger ones started to show up. After landing a couple of small fish on a green shrimp, I had a big hit when I cast toward a rise but I couldn't keep it on. Then a few minutes later I had my best fish of the day and so far, in the year as a feisty 17" rainbow power slammed my shrimp on the naked dry line as it was settling after the cast.

Again, most of the fisherman left around 5pm and it left just myself and another guy on the lake... the same guy that was there in a belly boat the week before. We chatted it up a bit and found out that he lived in Kamloops and his name was Dave too. He told me that last week when we first met, he stayed on the water for about a half hour longer than I did and managed to get into 2 fish in the 3lb range.

I continued to catch small fish for awhile but I was hanging in so that I could get a 2nd keepable fish. I hadn't kept a fish yet this year and we were expecting company later in the week so I was hoping to bring home dinner.

Just before 6pm (that was going to be my "last cast") I had another healthy strike, just like the other good one before and managed to land a fat 16" fish. For me, that's what I wanted and I knew that the princess was waiting at home with tonight's dinner on the table.

One thing of note... the water temperature near the surface was about 43F and it seemed that the fish were hitting the flies quite a bit harder and fighting much longer and vigorously than earlier days... a good sign that the best fishing is yet to come.