We fished Blue Lake this morning and had great fishing for stocker rainbows. We thought it would be good as we have been catching holdovers this winter and the hatchery truck visited on Wednesday with 2300 fish. We consistently caught and released the new fish, 3-6 an hour, all morning. Didn't encounter any holdovers. It was sunny and 26 degrees this morning, and we fought guide ice and there was ice along the shore until about 9:15. When we left at 11:00 it was 50 degrees. Best fishing was 8:30-10:00. Water temp was upper 30's away from shore and 3' deep.

We only brought fly rods today, all in. We kept pace with or were doing consistently better that the 3 other parties fishing bait. My son started with a black egg sucking leach and was into a fish before I pulled line off the reel. I started with a heather nymph (been good recently) then an olive bugger for about 45 minutes with no luck. I switched to a black bead head bugger, then was into fish the rest of the morning. I did switch to the same fly in olive for a bit, no love. Only black got hit today, weird. Also, the fish were retrieve specific today. After letting the fly sink, the leader length of about 8.5', the fish wanted a medium fast strip of about 4-5 feet, then a long pause. They would hit at the first pull, or on the pause, and it was soft. I re-sharpened my hook every other fish and hooked more than my son. Short, slow or jerky retrieves got no interest. Some fish were taken right at shore before picking up to cast. All in all a great morning.

Since fishing was good and consistent we tried a little scent on the flies later on, just to see, some anise and some shrimp. My observation was scent added no benefit, but did not detract either. There were very few other people, especially since it was stocked Wednesday, I was surprised.

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