Jeff and I decided to hit Fish Lake in Spokane County because it was close and a no gas motor lake. He has daily chores that keep him home till around 9:30 so that's when we left his place with my pontoon boat on my trailer and his in the back of my truck. We started out trolling flies without any luck. Jeff had a hit right of the bat, but no hook up. I had a hit about 30 minutes later on a Red Butt Olive Soft Hackle, but also had no hook up. We trolled almost the entire lake with no luck. Jeff is basically a dry fly fisherman and he couldn't stand it any longer so he switched to a floating line and a dry fly. It was a large fly, with a highly visible white post, orange body and legs. Right away he started getting hits from the many Bluegill that are in the lake. But, the fish were so small they couldn't get the hook in their mouths. That's when he caught and landed his first of three Tiger Trout. It was like the Bluegills would try to take the fly but couldn't and that's when the Tigers would take over. His success convinced me to switch to a dry fly so I tied on a size 16 Hank O' Hair. I started getting rises right away, but they were the small mouth variety and I couldn't hook up. I had fish rise 10 consecutive times to 10 consecutive casts and couldn't hook up. Finally I did, and when I brought it to hand it was the smallest Bluegill I had ever seen. That is until I caught the next one. The first one was probably 4 inches and the next one 3. They both made me laugh and at least the skunk was off for the day.
All day long the lake was like a mirror except for a couple of gentle breezes lasting only a few minutes. I had decided to wear cuttoffs without waders and I forgot the sunscreen. I'm paying for it now. We had the lake almost all to ourselves except for 3 kayakers and a lady probably in her 70's swimming the breadth of the lake. It was a very pleasant and relaxing day on the lake. As we were loading out, some nice folks launched what is called a Wherry. It was a beautiful hand made boat with three passengers. They weren't fishing, they were just joy riding. Seeing that just topped off a great day on the lake.

---