A Warm November and Afternoon Rainbows

This past Saturday, I took advantage of the warm weather that is sweeping across the Twin Cities area. I headed to one of my favorite local lakes to do some fly fishing. Most of the time it has just been for practice aiming for panfish like bluegill and pumpkinseed. But with the cooler temps that we have seen the last couple weeks many of the panfish have receded to greater depths and I can't reach them anymore. But, feeling quite optimistic, I visited the lake anyway hoping that I could catch one of the trout that rumor has it, inhabit the lake I was visiting. As I proceeded to make my way around the lake I found a large amount of wildlife also out, enjoying the warm weather. There were numerous geese and muskrats paddling around on the water surface. I had ventured to a part of the lake that was sheltered from the breeze and therefore quite calm. The surface was very undisturbed and I threw out my popper hoping for some action from a bluegill. I was greeted with a little sunny almost immediately and as I worked to get it from the hook a large splash caught my attention. Something had made a decent ripple farther out from shore. As I continued to watch several more ripples began to appear. I hastily searched for a different fly in my box not sure what to pick because I didn't really see any bugs to speak of. In the process of switching flies I saw several fish jump out of the water, including a trout that jumped three times from the water within a span of just seconds. It was truly magnificent. Finally I settled on a fly that I had made my self which you can see below. To my absolute amazement, it worked, and I caught two very nice Rainbow Trout. They were roughly 16" and quite fat. They fought hard and it was truly exhilarating to catch a fish on something that I had made. I'll leave you with my best picture.

Enjoy.