Today was the first day I have been to Offut. I found the parking at the boat launch was, indeed, small. We got the last two spots before one has to start looking for side of the road parking. The day was nice. This time I remembered my thermometer and at 11am the air temp was 58 degrees. The water temp was 50 degrees and at 2pm it was still 50 degrees. I thought that it might have gone up with the sun shining but it didn’t. I tried out my new downrigger to see if I like the positioning which was fine but I am all thumbs in trying to work it. The fishing was slow for us. A few bites while trolling and after seeing others catch fish still fishing I tried it using powerbait. I think still fishing can be boring...
I was awakened from my daydreaming by the sound of my reels drag singing. I pulled up on the rod and the fish pulled back I start to reel and the mouth of the fish comes up out of the water about 25 feet from the boat shakes it head and the hook comes flying back at me. That was it for fish.

tmib

3/27/2010 11:53:00 PM

I was on Offut today as well. My father and I were fly fishing from my canoe. (I was in a red jacket in the stern, black canoe, dunno if we spoke or not)

Beautiful weather today. We landed one small (12") rainbow. I hooked a pretty good sized fish (cutthroat?) that wanted to fight for a bit. I got him up to the boat, but it broke the line when I tried to get it in the net. We were out there for about 9 hours, and other than those two hits, had nothing.

'OL GREY DOG

3/28/2010 6:35:00 AM

SET THE HOOK...LOLOLOL....im sure the barometer was not help'n ya...
sometimes when that lake is "off" this time of year 2 or 3 ft under a bobber works better than the bottom.....tight lines 'n strong knots...DOG

Toni

3/28/2010 8:39:00 AM

Tmib,,,I do remember you! I don't think we talked but as you went by I thought "I wonder if they are on WL.com" Have you had of picture of you in the canoe before? Why else might I think that?

tmib

3/28/2010 9:12:00 AM

No idea Toni. I post a lot on WashingtonFlyFishing, and participate a small amount on Gamefishin, so if you've ever been at gatherings for those events, it's possible we've run across each other before.

Thanks for posting the temp info. I have been planning to pick up a water thermometer and was wonder what the numbers looked like yesterday.

I was surprised that I wasn't seeing a lot more fish coming in yesterday. Conditions seemed pretty good, and with the recent stocking, I'd think that there'd be lots of opportunity.

I'm going to invest in some quick-release strike indicators. The chironomid fishing we were doing seems like a great method, but it's hard to land a fish with a 12' leader that you can't reel in. On a related note, we inspected the stomach of the 12" fish we caught, and it was jam packed with chironomids.

Toni

3/28/2010 9:34:00 AM

I watched the hatch and was thinking that there should be fish breaking the water but there wasn't. I thought they must be getting them before they come up. I did start out trolling an olive woolly bugger w/o any bites so I didn't try anything else along that line.
I just started looking at the fly site and I have been to the other frequently. That must be where I have seen you before. Do you fish on rivers?

tmib

3/28/2010 12:51:00 PM

Yep, I spent a lot of time over the fall and winter fishing for salmon and steelhead on rivers.

I was hoping that I'd see fish starting to surface late in the day yesterday so I could fish dry flies, but there was nothing visible even around 6 pm.

I would have headed back today, but I've got work I need to get done around home. I do intend to return soon though; that big cutthroat that broke off at the boat really made me excited to fish this lake. :)

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