I traveled,through the rain and mixed snow an rain on Thursday, destination DF. The pass was crap but it quit when I hit Eburg.
Fished DF on Thursday. Took a bit to get set up, first day is always like that. Hit the first fish on type VI with a rabbit fur zonker, couple of other hits. The fish that I hit on this was one of the smaller ones so I could have just been at their depth. Had quite a few other bumps, smaller fish(?). Moved into the north shallow bay, no love there. Went back to "goose poop rock", in the channel by the island. Hit a couple of nice fish there. Moved to the south bay and hit a couple more fish down about 10'. Moved to the area below the observation area and fished towards the reeds, a couple of more fish to be had there. Except for the one on the zonker, all these others were on either the red SJW worm black snocone. I WAS ONLY ONE ON THE LAKE!
Ran into the state park area manager - Sun Lakes & Steamboat, a contractor and a local fly club guy. Due to the low water, there is some interest in improving the north launch area (the south launch is unusable). Not an easy project with wetlands. The water was as low as I have ever seen it and another 1-2 feet will make it darn near impossible to launch at the traditional sites. Some discussion whether the draw down last year on Banks affected the H2O level at DF, hmmmm. The other alkai lakes east of DF pretty much dried up.
On to Saturday. With the mixed success on Friday, I pondered heading home. Wait, traveled 4 hours through crappy weather to catch just a few fish, tent camp in the 30 degree temps - gotta at least try. Besides, I had to pick up a bat detector that I set on the island. I picked up the detector and set to do a bit of bobber fishing. First cast, take down, one fish to the net. Next two casts, take down. Hmmm, looking good. I stayed in one spot and ended up with 10 fish by 0900, and left with 20 to the net at 1030. There were some misses too. This was all on bobbers, 10' down. So, to answer the question, yes, you can fish below an indicator in the fall / winter.
One other float tube guy showed up just as I was leaving. That was the only other person I saw on the lake.
The fish were healthy, except for one snaky guy. Small guys, 10-12' are feisty, most were in the 16 - 18" range, all bows.
Done on the dry side for the season. Always nice to make one more late trip.
Sorry for the length of this, I'm not usually this wordy - long drive and a couple of toddys.
Safe travels to ya - And thanks to all the veterans and their families.
MB