I fished Medical lake from about 4:30 until 8:00 pm. The weather was cloudy and overcast with air temperatures (low 50s) much cooler than we have been experiencing in Spokane this spring. This was my fourth of fifth trip to Medical lake this spring and I have had pretty good success fishing chironomids here so I decided to fish them again this evening. Before launching my pontoon, I always do a check of the surface and a quick seine to see what is happening in the water. One noticeable thing was the absence of chironomid shucks floating on the surface. I did uncover quite a few immature damsel nymphs (size 16, tan colored were most prevalent with a few olive green in the same size) and some micro-scuds but no chironomid pupa to speak of (which were readily present in large numbers when I was last on the lake 10 days ago or so). With the cloud cover and cooler air temps, I decided to fish in the shallower water (10-12 ft) adjacent to the park where I hoped to find some !
insect activity. Upon arriving, there were some noticeable pupal shucks (mostly small, 16-18 with a few large 10-12) but again not nearly the numbers I have experienced there earlier in the season. Sporadic riseforms would appear from time to time indicating that some trout were taking pupa underneath the surface or in the film so I stuck with my guns and began fishing chironomids near the bottom with the intent of gradually working my way up in the water column should the hatch intensify. Unfortunately, such a hatch never materialized, even into the later hours of the evening. There never was a time in which significant numbers of fish were taking midges on top or in the film subsurface. I did notice in the last hour before dark a fairly substantial mayfly hatch (callibaetis I assume) which did not interest the trout whatsoever so I did not pay much attention to it, although in hindsight in might not have been a bad idea to fish a callibaetis nymph pattern during this.
. With the scarcity of noticeable midge activity, I did manage to hook up nine times during the course of the evening. The two largest fish to hand were 17-18", both browns. The fishing was sporadic at best, as I would hook up two or three times in succession and then nothing for a long period of time in spite of making color and/or size adjustments with the chironomid patterns I was fishing. There was not a consistent color or one that stood out as being that which the fish were keying in on this evening. Black and olive are the two most predominant colors I have noticed in the naturals obtained either from stomach samples or seining the water. This day, black accounted for three of the fish hooked, olive green accounted for two, a red blood worm hooked two fish and the other two fish I hooked up with came unbuttoned before I could see which pattern they took. I was fishing a tandem rig utilizing a two fly set up (usually a larger chironomid as the lead fly- sz 14 with a smaller chironomid as my dropper fly -sz 16-20).

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