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Amber 03/13

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893 views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  Ricardo O. 
#1 ·
First trip out this year to fish Amber or any lake for that matter and it was one of those days when the "when, where, and what" all came together to produce some epic fishing. The ice on Amber is now completely gone, but when I arrived at Amber around 8:30am on the 13th there was still quite a bit of ice out from the launch to the right that extended down to the old resort.. the saving grace was a a small section of open water along the bank from the launch that allowed me to access the far south end bay which was completely open and ice free. However, given the strong winds that did not let up until about 12:30 pm, I did not actually start fishing in that bay until about 1:30pm... before that I fished off the launch with 4-5 other guys for a bit and picked up 5 fish in the first hour or so before the bite died.. with little room to explore I decided just to wait it out in hopes the wind would die down a bit so I could launch my pram... thankfully it did.

I put in at 1230pm I explored the small stretch of open water off the shore out to the ice as I worked my way to the far south end. The maximum depth right off the ice was 8 feet and gradually tapered up towards the bank... in this area is a submerged weed bed that often holds fish later in the season, but given the proximity to the ice the water temps here was 41-42 degrees.. I was indicator fishing using a two fly rig trying to cover water more than "bobber watch".. which meant that I never allowed the indicator to sit more than 30 seconds before recasting.. the takes were coming within 10-20 seconds of the fly sinking to depth, but I was not finding a "repeatable" bite anywhere.. I was picking up an individual fish here and there with the "best" water being that right off the bank... fishing over the submerged weed bed in 8 ft of water and off the ice itself produced only one small fish.. the transition from shallow to deep which marked the front edge of the weed bed was about 6 ft and thought it might hold some fish but I picked up nothing there.. after 4 fish to hand in about an hour I decided to fish the far south end in hopes of finding greater concentrations of fish.

If you have ever fished Amber you know that end of the lake is shallow with an extensive weed bed that covers nearly the entire bay.. being so early the weeds have not pushed up towards the surface so the water depth was a fairly consistent 3-4ft whereas later in the season the depth can be a foot or less.. the small pockets or areas devoid of any weeds or grass within this bay are often productive, but the "where" on this day was not there or over the weeds. There is an area in this bay that contains lilly pads, which will eventually be visible above the surface.. on this day they were not, but were clearly visible below. After having picked up another 3 fish over the weedbed in similar fashion as before in exploring the area near the ice, I eventually found myself where it changes from weeds to lilly pads.. the water depth remained the same, but the water temps here were 44-45 degrees.. and to my happy surprise upon arriving there prolific numbers of chironomids were "popping" at the surface with a an occasional fish eating the pupae just below the surface.

Given the bite I was picking up on my bottom fly (siz 12 bloodworm) I did not change flies right away. As it turned out it did not seem to matter much. My first cast produced a fish and for the next two hours the takes were coming on nearly every cast.. with the longest time between takes being only a few minutes, which did not happen often. They were eating the bloodworm 3 ft below my indicator like candy even though throat samples were revealing copious numbers of 16 paper thin chromies as the food source of choice. The hardest part of the fishing was keeping the hooked rainbows out of the submerged lilly pads, which offer no give at all. 5 fish broke me off and it made me wish I had something stronger than 4x with me.. eventually I was down to my last blood worm so I decided to "match the hatch" with a 16 chromie tied slim to imitate the naturals. Like the bloodworm the trout continued to eat it with reckless abandon. For curiosity I moved away from the lilly pads to fish away from them where the mids' were still showing.. after 10 minutes or so without a bump, I moved back to the lillies and the bite continued.. lots of fish were also holding tight to the bank off of which the submerged lillies began to appear so both the bank water and anywhere in or alongside the inner and outer edges of the submerged lillies produced a ridiculous bite.

Eventually the bite died as the emergence ended, so I moved across the bay to fish the bank water littered with cattails.. while not an "eat" a cast, fishing the open water tight to the bank or between the cattails protruding above the surface produced another 10 fish or so in the last hour and a half.. all on the bloodworm. About 530 I started to make my way back to the launch.. there were a couple guys fishing there off the bank, but I decided to make a few casts to see if I could pick up a fish on my way out... switched back to a blob fly as these "launch" fish are often easy prey for egg flies this time of year and quickly hooked up a fish on my second cast. Over the last hour had 10 hook ups and 6 to hand.. nice way to end a really good day.

All told it was not complicated to figure out.. just a matter at being at the right place at the right time.. slightly warmer water, strong emergence of chironomids, and unpressured fish (likely was the first person to fish this end of the lake this year) made the fishing pretty easy.. not always the case but its nice when it happens like that.. the fish were all healthy and I landed fish from 6" to 21" and pretty much everywhere in between.. Even picked up a few brilliantly colored cutts with the largest of the two being 17"...

Hope everyone is enjoying a good start to the season...
 
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#2 ·
Bummer I'm 4 hours away, you'da had company...I remember eyeballing that big shallow flat area, thinking I was on the verge of doing major damage, only to find it was choked out by all that vegetation. Never thought about it clearing out over the winter - I'm jealous of the hole you found, nice work David!

Thanks for such an outstanding report. Needs a pic - you can have my spy photo from last fall :D:

Plant Window Wood Sky Tree
 
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