Only a dozen fish today, 10 rainbows and 2 cutthroats, ranging in size from 16-19", between the two of us in nearly 6 hours of fishing. We fished chironomids near the bottom with full sink lines, a technique that is usually incredibly effective, but not today. We arrived at 9:00 and were fishing by 9:30. Winds were from the south at 7-8 MPH with partly sunny skies. The southerly wind had me stoked...it was going to be a good day (or so I thought!). At 10:00 or so I saw a red chironomid so switched accordingly. Immediately got two rainbows and lost another. This action ended as quickly as it started and we went fishless for the next two hours. There was no identifiable hatch of any kind during the morning hours. We tried all of our usual patterns to no avail.

We then moved to deeper water north of the launch. There were a few chironomids coming off and in the next two hours we were able to get some strikes, landing a half dozen rainbows on red patterns and bead head PTs, but missing out on the fast and furious action we normally get at this lake. It wasn't "catching" today....it was fishing!

At 2:00 we moved to and fished immediately off the launch. This effort was fruitless except for one hung/lost in the next hour. At about 3:00 two damsel nymphs came up, one at my boat and one by my partner's. I immediately tied in a stillwater nymph and fished it in that same slow, vertical manner, getting 2 cutthroats, 1 rainbow and another lost rainbow in the next 30 minutes, the best action of the day. My partner got a couple also. This damsel hatch was the only sizeable hatch we saw all day. We pumped some stomachs and came up with nothing.....there was nothing for them to key in on.

At least we didn't get skunked, something Amber's done to me a couple times in the past! Still, it was awfully slow considering the wind and weather conditions.

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