I fished Nunnally for the first time ever with Jason St. Germain of Kaufmann's Streamborn. We started out at Rocky Ford Creek about 7:30 and made the trip over to Nunnally about 3:00 in the afternoon. The wind was quite intense with the Columbia resembling more a bay than a river with 2-3 foot waves crashing along its shoreline. We decided to make the trek up anyway and found 4 other anglers there -- all in float tubes. They were kicking like crazy just trying to make some ground against the wind.

We were only wading so we suited up and stepped out onto the flats on the western shore. Jason had tied up some red chironomid patterns for us to try just off the ledge. It was so windy we were having a hard time keeping an eye on our large strike indicators. I gradually worked my way west toward some shelter from the wind. The closer I got to the west end, the more sure I was that there were rising fish in the calm water. I decided to hike all the way into the flat, shallow waters of the west end and try my luck with the rising fish rather than cast aimlessly into the waves and stare at my "bobber". The water temp was a surprisingly warm 60 deg. in the shallows.

There seemed to be a consistent hatch of quite large midges. They were probably in the magnitude of size 14-16 and had a creamy-gray abdomen. They were hatching from a pretty dark gray almost black shuck and the trout were cruising around picking them off. I tried various patterns before discovering an old Lasher's emerger pattern with a black abdomen and clipped deer-hair wing. It was a much better match from above water than below as evidenced by the several pick-ups from swallows that were working the water for hatching midges as intensely as the trout were. Unfortunately the match was not quite so good from below.

Finally I did get a strike. I quickly lifted my rod tip and pulled on the line at the same time -- only to immediately have my fly and freshly hooked fish part company with my leader and rod. I wasn't prepared for the weight of these large Nunnally trout. I had one more pattern and tied it on. A short while later I was blessed with another strike and this time I hooked the fish which took a run for the deeper water. It pulled out line and dove for cover, right into the muck of weeds on the bottom. When I brought in my line, that was all that was on it, weeds. In the weeds however were a few bright red chironomids. Jason's v-rib patters were almost exactly the same color red.

Well Jason had hooked and lost one fish on a scud and that was all that we were able to produce on this trip. I was impressed by the size of the fish and have now decided to dedicate myself to learning more about fishing the midge. These trout are very selective and have a lot of time to examine your offering before committing themselves to it. On the walk back to the truck I started thinking about this fine lake, its large cruising trout and our results that day and then it dawned on me how it must have gotten its name: None-ly.

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