Fall Patterns for lakes

[Levy]

I am heading out to the Narrow Hills Area in Sask on Sunday. I plan to do some shore fishing and stream fishing with my fly rod. I have always done very well on streams but I have a particularly hard time catching trout in lakes with my fly rod. Last year when I was up there I could see them cruise by about 15 feet out and was able to see brookies, browns, rainbows and tigers but couldn't convince them to bite. I was using leeches, muddler minnows in a variety of colours, cone headed muddler minnows, and wooly buggers. Out of three days I only managed to land two 14-16 inch tigers on small leaches. I found if they did check out my fly they would swim fast towards it and at the last few inches turn and and head the other way. I would often stop or significantly slow my retrieve when they did this. Is this correct or should i speed up my retrieve?

Right around sunset the water would have a nice boil to it but they weren't feeding on surface. I tried using a dry fly as an indicator with gnats, nymphs, and chironomids but never had a hit. Any suggestions on patterns or techniques that may help me land more than two fish in three days are welcome.

[Bjay]

Do not change you retrieve when the fish comes to your fly. Boatmen and back swimmers are on the water about now. Chromomids are very small in the fall so you need very small chronomids size 16,18, 20. If you can see the fish then your fly should be below the surface only 2 or 3 or 4 ft. Small black chronys with a white bead or black bead. Give it a try.
Bjay

[pipco]

Fall is a great time to throw on a boatman or backswimmer with floating or sink tip line. For more info on this pattern Google is your friend. There are lots of variations and trout absolutely love them when they are keyed in. The takes are often very , very aggressive. A boatman fall is when you'll actually see the bugs falling out of the sky, plopping on the water, spinning on the surface and then cruising down to the bottom to lay their eggs.

Another good fall technique when water cools down is a leech or woolly bugger hung under an indicator. Try different depths, colors and patterns. A good rule of thumb is olive during bright days and black, brown, purple or maroon, during cloudy, dawn or dusk. Hang fly about about a foot off the bottom, slow retrieve or even catatonic for starters and try different speeds to see what works best.

Have fun and good luck. I hope you get into some fish.

[kstats]

Those fish get hammered with flies and hardware from ice-out to ice-up... When in doubt, go smaller. A real small bloodworm or a small chironomid will often convince a big fish to eat that previously swam right past your bugger or leach. Got an 8.5 lb/28.5" brown out of one of those lakes a while back on a small (sz 10) olive bugger and have had good success by generally going smaller and more delicate as opposed to bigger and uglier. Good luck!!

[Pierre]

http://http://web.flycraftangling.co...art_fall_l.jpg

[pikergolf]

My go to fall fly is a size 10 brown woolly bugger. Fish will be over weeds feeding, that can look like shore line weed beds or mid lake weed beds. I can't emphasis enough, weed beds!! lol Don't be surprised to find fish very shallow, 2 or 3 ft.

[Levy]

Thanks guys. A lot of good info I can put to use. Ill be packing my camera and hope to snap some nice pics. I will be fishing the less popular lakes, and if its anything like last year I will have them to myself. : )

[Outbound]

I generally hammer fish on leech patterns in fall. Chironomids as well. Mind you, I fish mainly interior BC lakes. Could be different here in Alberta, as I haven't spent much time on the lakes. The pie chart posted earlier in the thread is a good one.

[Bjay]

My basic leach
Standard # 10 hook (94840)
Wrap small amount of lead on hook. Your choice.
Tail, black marabou, tied in long and torn off same length as hook or 1 1/2 times length of hook
Wrap black marabou around the hook
Spiral red wire over marabou.
Use red thread for tying and make sure the red head is prominent. It makes a difference.
Done. Plain and simple.
I use a dry line as much as possible too approx. 12 feet of water and add some split shot as needed for depth.
Slow retrieve.
After 50 years it is still my go to fly in the fall in shallow water.
Columbia Old Guy

[Levy]

I got back late wednesday and flew up north back to work at six in the morning on thursday. Fishing was ok considering i went from +16 and clear skies to 0 and snowing of the two and a half days i was there. I got into some decent numbers on tigers and splake on one lake, but still have a long ways to go with fly fishing. I will hopefully post pictures and more updates tomorrow. Water boatman and small olive bead headed leaches gave me the best luck on the lakes. I had my best luck with very small brown leeches in the creeks and a prince nymph that i lost to a willow tree. The large two to three pound brookies in the creeks refused to bite but would only ever swim and check out my largest black and tinsel leeches. Would love to fish there in better weather or by moonlight in the summer but I make my trip up there in the fall for the colours, hills and scenery.

[Pudelpointer]

Hit Police Outpost yesterday with a buddy.

We tried various nymphs, chironomids, boatmen, and leech patterns on a variety of lines, and we picked up the occasional fish throughout the morning on a variety of them, but nothing was consistent until I threw on a hot orange blob (or as I started calling it, the 'cheesy blob'). Then I added a hot purple leech pattern that I was shown by a friend from the west coast (he uses it for everything) and things took off! Then the sun came out and it all stopped.

All in it was a good day to be fishing.