Lake Petocka Trout, 5-3-2014

I think I’m pretty much done trying for trout until Fall.   I caught 3 on Saturday morning.  It was a lot of work, but they were pretty nice fish for around here!  I measured one chunky trout at 14.5”, and another was about that length, possibly 15” but a bit slimmer.

The fights were EPIC on the Allen Olympic 12' 5wt switch rod!!!  The 14.5-incher, I was CERTAIN I’d hooked a big brooder!  It dove deep, headed for open water, came up and made a BIG SWIRL, and was fighting strong!  The other nice one rocketed straight across in front of me, the line was SINGING as it sliced through the water…faster than a PIKE!!!  And then it made some some absolutely spectacular speeding porpoise-like jumps out of the water.  It was fantastic!  Its rare to get such awesome fights out of these stocked fish, but it certainly shows what they are capable of. 

I know there are some good trout still in the lake, but "return on investment" recently has been pretty low.  2 of my last 3 trips there resulted in SKUNKS (likely due to the weather conditions), and overall it seems like the comparatively few trout remaining in the lake have moved out away from shore and into deeper water.  I'm not prepared to chase them there yet on fly gear.  Hopefully many of them will survive the summer and be even bigger this coming Fall.  :)  I'm already looking forward to that.

Lake Petocka, 11-9-2013

I'm writing this on Tuesday, and it was 11 degrees F on my way in to work today, and it was snowing yesterday.  BRRRR!
On Saturday when I fished, it was much warmer...a comparatively balmy mid-40's.  Sure, my fingers were cold, but the real killer was the WIND.  It was screaming steadily at 22 mph, and gusting to almost 30 mph!

I was standing knee deep in the water, and the wind and waves factored greatly in creating a mudline downwind along the shore for at good 30 yards or more.  Tough conditions.

Fishing was slow, or at least the catching was.  I felt I had plenty of strikes, but most were single strikes.  Previous trips to this lake had fish that would strike 2 and 3 times or more before getting hooked.

I tried a number of patterns.  I landed 5 trout, and caught at least one each on a Chili Pepper, a BH Black Woolly Bugger, a brown-over-white Clouser Deep Minnow, and a Big Hole Demon.

Extended forecast says its going to warm back up a bit over the next few days.  I'm looking forward to that!

Lake Petocka Stocker Trout, Fall 2013

I went flyfishing for "stocker trout" at Lake Petocka on Saturday, October 26.  It had been 8 days since they were stocked.
I fished from 9am-3:45pm.  Weather was mostly sunny, high temps reached around 50 degrees F.  Wind was 10-15 mph from the NNW.  I put some hip waders on and waded out to about knee deep.

I used a #8 Beadhead black Woolly Bugger for a good part of the day.  I experimented with a few other colors, caught fish on most of them, but the black seemed to be the trouts' preference on this day.

I ended up catching 67 Rainbow Trout.

I measured one at @ 14.25".  I landed one that I suspect was significantly larger, but it flopped off my fly as I was carrying it back to shore to measure it.  I could have tried to grab it, but I just let it go on its way.
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On Sunday, October 27, I flyfished the lake again in the evening..from 4pm to 6:45pm.  The last hour was fairly worthless.  I ended up with landing 21 Rainbow Trout.  The best fly this time was an unweighted white Woolly Bugger.

Stocker Trout, Fall 2013

Its that time of year when the DNR stocks trout in a handful of lakes across Iowa, as part of their Urban Trout Fishing program.  
On Sunday afternoon, I visited one of the lakes that were stocked on the preceding Friday.  The lake is 22 acres in size.  I wasn't there on stocking day, so I don't know the exact number, but typically they stock 1,500-1,800 trout at a time here.   I fished for quite awhile before I found a few fish.  The ones I found seemed to be "loners", not grouped up like they sometimes are.  I caught 13 while flyfishing, and lost a nice bass around dusk.  The bass jumped 3 times, dove, and then the hook pulled free near shore when I attempted to horse it in order to land it.

I took Monday off work to flyfish it again.  This time I found more fish, or maybe they just hit better in the mornings?  I caught 30 in the first hour before it slowed down.  It was slow but relatively steady fishing the rest of the day.  I ended up catching 107 trout, and 1 smallmouth bass.  That was way better than the day before!  Now, yes, that's a lot of fish.  My previous best was 88 fly-caught trout in a day, and a friend of mine had caught 42 while flyfishing on Sunday morning.  First, I hoped to beat his number, then I wanted to beat my old number, and then I was so close to 100 that I just had to keep going....

I had skipped lunch (it was in my car, I just didn't want to take a break to walk over and "refuel"!, plus it was cold...(started out at 35 degrees F, but eventually climbed to 48 degrees), windy, and I was standing calf deep in the water all day wearing some hip waders.  When I got done...I suddenly discovered I couldn't feel one foot.  My back was sore.  By the time I got home, I could barely stay awake.  I WAS BEAT...happy and satisfied...but BEAT!  And...I think I burnt myself out.  I wasn't that excited to go the next day, so I didn't.

I'm wondering if I should have left sooner...but what would you do?  The fish were biting, and there was nowhere else I needed to be.  Catching fish has always been my favorite way to pass the time.