My hunting and fishing partner, Brad, my younger son, Eric, and I had a great day on Lava Friday, and it really wasn't just about the fish. There were very few boats on the lake, so it almost felt private, and despite remaining wear-your-jacket cool, it was a bright, sunny day. Our morning started with an eagle stealing a fish from an osprey after putting on a pretty good air show. There were greenwing teal paired, courting, and starting to build a nest along the shore. Later in the afternoon, two osprey flew right over us, one of them carrying a muskrat . . . not something any of us had seen before. The nature show ended
with a bald eagle jumping a drake mallard out of some pocket water and into the safety of mid-lake. There were halos around the sun and multiple prisms of different colors in the fewwispy clouds in an otherwise blue sky. And oh yeah, there were trout, lots of trout . . .
. . . if I gave you a number, you'd think it was BS, so here's the deal. We started with each of us fishing a different depth with two different nymphs under indicators.
Brad got things going with a handful of nice 'bows on a red midge, but the hatch quickly changed (or so we think) and I found them a little shallower and keyed on small and dark at the rate of a grab a cast. When that slowed (to only one every few minutes!) we went back to searching until Eric dialed up an 18 Copper John and was immediately back in business. Then the fish seemed to want shallower flies in deeper water. It was definitely a day to listen to what the 'bows were telling us: change flies, change depths, stick and move.
Most were pretty typical early season Lava 'bows, 10-12 inches with a few smaller, all pulling like they were "real fish" with quite a few catching air multiple times. We got a number of fish with shoulders in the 14-16" range, and Eric had a solid 20 incher in full spawning colors come unbuttoned after a couple of runs. We fished 5 wts, but honestly, these were perfect 4 wt fish: healthy, feisty, and acrobatic. Yep, it was a great day! Tight lines - Jeff
