By Rick Stahl

This is the season when most outdoors men and women’s thoughts begin to shift from trout to salmon. We all get turned on to the bigger, meaner andronomous salmonoids and forget their gentler, land-locked cousins – the Kamloops trout.

First off, if your idea of a day’s fishing is standing shoulder to shoulder with a few dozen other anglers taking turns to cast, then the wide open, empty, forgotten, and quiet interior lakes are not for you. This is a place of solitude and sanity, when most of your peers will be out fishing for salmon. This is quality time away from the hustle and bustle of work and the combat fishing around the coast.

Lake fishing in the fall is not only lonely; it is quite effective as well. This is when most of those large spawned out trout, which you see in the spring, have dropped their eggs and cleaned up. These fish will be putting on weight for the winter. To do this they naturally, have to eat more and naturally, this makes for excellent fishing.

Fall fish are more calorie conscience than summer fish. They will basically take a turkey dinner over a granola bar. This is the time when the larger patterns, such as dragon nymphs and leeches, really shine. This isn’t to say that the fish have stopped eating small chironomids, but they will usually become very opportunistic. Searching patterns such as Doc-Sprat’s and Carey Specials would be a good place to start. The fish are usually charged up so be ready for “arm-jarring” takes.

Actual bug hatches usually become sporadic and unreliable (except for the ever present chironomids). The only true bug activity that is reserved for the fall will be the Water Boatmen hatch or flight. Boatmen will swim towards the surface, catapult out of the water, do their mating flight and then crash back into the water and swim for the bottom. Their migration to the surface and their dive back down are their vulnerable times.

To mimic these bugs, fish them on a full sinking line. As the line sinks, make shore 6 – 10 inch quick strips, this will imitate the diving bug. When the fly reaches its maximum depth, retrieve a little slower with 3 – 5 inch strips, this will imitate the rising Boatman.

Water Boatmen “carry” air with them in the form of a bubble, so when tying or buying flies, remember to look for some flash or beads to imitate this. Fish will often key in on that shiny bubble.

The fishing in the fall will stay good right up to “ice-on”. So, if you want to get away from crowded coastal streams, you will have until around the end of November to make your pilgrimage.