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3. Big Deep Blue Lake

Has anyone been to Bear Lake in Id/Ut? Its one of those emerald lakes where the visibility is seemingly endless. I'll be there visiting with family next week and will have a 6wt rod/reel/line combo. I've read that the primary fish (Cutthroat and lakers) are deep this time of year and I don't have the gear for that. Would there still be smaller browns and rainbows around the grassy or rocky banks or must I move to streams to have a hope of catching anything. I am a small stream fisherman from eastern PA and have very little idea how to approach a wide open lake with hardly any cover. I'm willing to change target species and also location but I'd prefer to be in or near the lake. Any advice is appreciated as I don't wan't to get skunked in front of my grandchildren.

Never fished out west but if I had the opportunity, I'd be heading for the streams. You'd have to pay me to fish a lake if I could get to the rivers.

My sort of thinking as well but there are Folks that feel the reverse. I feel lost in big water. I do tend to sell myself short but if someone encourages me I likely to take their advice.
The Logan River is very close and if nothing else it looks perfect.

I just wade the shallows around rocks and weed beds if I can. I don't have a boat, so I don't get out in the middle of lakes.

The best times I have found are of course early in the morning and in the evening when trout are cruising the shallows.

If you do go deep, cast out heavy nymphs, or buzzers. Try an intermediate fly line or a sink tip line. I recommend a heavier rod for full sinking lines, like an 8wt.

Get a kayak!! They rock for fishing trout stillwaters, just search around in my posts and you'll see plenty of Stillwater trout taken in that yellow boat in my picture. Stealthy - even though mine is bright yellow, I have had trout up to 16" slam a fly right next to the boat!

Best of luck and remember, trout get BIGGER in stillwaters.

Jonathon

P.S. Strmanglr said, " You'd have to pay me to fish a lake if I could get to the rivers." By golly man, FISH ALL OF 'EM!!! No payment necessary for me!

Well I had a great time proving I was a beginner with the fly rod. The lake was out of the question as it was more than my gear and my limited fly experience could handle. I decided to fish the native cutthroat and whacked a couple in Mill Creek Canyon near Salt Lake City. Then I moved to the Logan River in Northern Utah and I caught some more. I still have yet to catch a trout on a fly outfit in PA. But there is hope for those that continue to adapt and learn.
Thanks.

I own a kayak as well and I do enjoy fishing out of it, on lakes too. I'm a water rat who likes to fish, so any kind of fishing is enjoyable to me. Nothing compares to fishing clear streams though. Exploring new water, what's around the next bend, making a perfect cast in a difficult spot, the seclusion, just the exploring is an adventure. I fished most of my life on lakes. Fishing has never been and never will be the same since my first trout river fishing. As a fisherman, it's where I belong. I would rather spend a day on a trout river and get skunked than have a great day of catching fish on a lake.

Understood, Sir. To each his own! I did take my guests out to the Pine on Sunday, and yes, those crystal-clear small streams are just magical places, in fact I have new ones to explore around my new location (story coming on that eventually). To be honest, I have done much more stream fishing for trout than lake fishing, so for me the lake fishing is what I haven't done a lot of. Plus I just have some beautiful little lakes to go to, which also happen to have keeper-sized perch in both, so I can always bring home something to eat if I want to. And catching trout by twitching a grasshopper or cricket imitation on glassy water - well, what can I say? Brookies just blast 'em! And they also just started stocking browns in Reid Lake a couple of years ago, a lake that is loaded with minnows so there will be some alligators in there within a few years!

To each their own, plenty of trout to go around here in MI...tight lines wherever you go and however you fish!

Jonathon