Lake Alice Report and questions

[Eric Tarcha]

Hit up Lake Alice this evening from about 6:00 until dark. It was a really calm evening and I was the only one on the lake. Caught 4 planters on a thin mint trailed with a gold bead hare's ear casting and stripping through the rise rings. there were quite a few birds diving around either looking for or eating bugs... so here is the thing....I am just starting to explore lake fishing and having a good time, but i have some questions that I am hoping the fellas can help me out with.

a) so after a while i was not getting any more takes on the rig I was throwing. most of the fish were not sticking their noses out of the water but their dorsal fins were coming out... does this mean they were taking some sort of emerger, not an adult? There seemed to be some midges coming off, but the fish would not take a dry midge pattern. i couldn't figure out what to throw at them...what is a good midge emerger pattern?

b) there would be a big flurry of surfaces then nothing for a while, is this normal on stillwater?

c) this question is regarding lake alice itself. There seemed to be a lot of algae or something in the water. I kept a few of the fish and butterfly filleted them when i got home. I noticed the fish smelled kind of strange, like a weird muddy smell. I did the typical bonk and bleed and put them on ice until i got home. I have filleted many a fish in my day, but it has been a while for stocker trout. Is this how they usually smell when you gut them or is this a result of living/eating in the algae for a while? I am wondering if I should even bother smoking these fish if they are going to taste like dirt....any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Sourdoughs]

a) With the finning ripple type action you saw, and the calm water, they were most likely taking chironos that had reached the surface film and were having trouble breaking through to start emerging. See the thread that has Cutter's underwater video to see the chirono dangling just under the surface - very cool.

b) I've seen the flurry and just attributed it to cruising fish. They hadn't been in an area in a while and the food started to concentrate, they came back and had a snack. Just a guess on my part - nothing scientific behind it.

I don't know about (c) at all.

-Marc

[ral]

I have fished Alice recently. Sourdough's a) reply is probably correct. I have done well fishing an emerger under those conditions. The surface flurry was porbaly a group of stockers just swimming around. I have seen a pod of fish moving like that and done well casting in front of them.

I have noticed the algae bloom or whatever it is in the water at Alice this year. Since I don't kill fish I don't know if it affects the taste. It doesn't seem to affect the fishing.

[chadk]

Try fishing a dry, like a dark EHC, and then tie on an unweighted chironomid a foot or 2 back as a dropper. Cast toward risers. Try to let it sit still and if no luck, give it some short strips or even wake the dry and see what happens. Or try going small with an adult midge pattern and then a trailer of either an emerger or non-weighted chironomid. Keep a tight line and watch for swirls. Takes can be hard to see at times.

[Eric Tarcha]

Thanks for the imput guys...

Any thoughts on the trout smell? i just don't want to eat trout that is tainted with toxic algae or something.

[chadk]

Should be fine. Alice is small and muddy and shallow (I think), so that may have something to do with it. can only imagine it get's much worse in a few months.

[Kent Lufkin]

Any thoughts on the trout smell? i just don't want to eat trout that is tainted with toxic algae or something.

I haven't bonked a fish in several decades but when I did, I found that river or stream fish always tasted better. I think it might have more to do with how much more highly oxygenated stream water is than lakes. If it makes you feel any better, fish from the highly alkaline waters in the basin east of the Cascades taste even worse.

K