Stage Two
“The ability of shore fishermen to match a stonefly, calibaettis or caddis hatch begins to determine how well they do at this point,” says Smiley. “Even stocked trout can be highly selective. After a stocked trout has been in the system a year, it’s hard to tell it from a wild trout, as far as feeding tendencies are concerned. You can catch stocked trout during hatches with hardbaits like Rapalas. Bigger trout, especially, are meat-eaters. Tube jigs and Rapalas are best just before and right after a major hatch. When those bugs start to move, we stop getting hookups on hard gear. You can see the transition, because the hardbait bite begins to slow and always eventually dies.
“Before a bug hatch, trout are opportunistic,” he continues. “During a major hatch, even the biggest fish in the system can be feeding selectively on something tiny like a #16 chironomid. If nothing is written about the hatches in the lake, you have to collect, identify, and tie or buy imitations on your own. Hatches take place on shallow flats and typically are most pronounced around the lake’s biggest weedbeds. Look for rising trout and sight-fish for them with a floating, double-tapered line and a light flyrod appropriate for conditions. A 4-weight is fine on a calm day, and most hatches occur when the water is pretty flat. A 7-weight might be necessary on windy days. Look for rises, or cast to cruising trout you can see. It’s the best time to use a flyrod, because you can perfectly measure distances and get the fly back to the same key spots trout are passing through.
“Bugs can just explode out of those weedbeds. With billions of bugs in the air around you, it’s easy to see why trout become selective and refuse anything else. Feeding is easy and food plentiful, even though the individual forage items are very small. Match the hatching insects correctly and you’re in for the best fishing for numbers the lake produces all year. But when the surface hits 70°F in summer, fly-fishing tapers off dramatically.”
Stage Three
A thermocline (a sharp division between upper and lower temperature layers of a water column) develops in most lakes as water approaches 70°F. The formation can be accelerated in calm weather or delayed by high winds, but only those lakes that retain good oxygen levels below the thermocline in summer can maintain stocked trout year-round, as a general rule. Shallow, spring-fed lakes with no thermocline can maintain populations of wild brook trout or self-sustaining populations of brown trout or rainbows, but trout can’t survive long in 70°F water. Stocked trout in lakes can utilize the surface and top layer of the water column in fall, winter, and spring, but rarely in summer, where waters broach the 70°F mark. Trout may cruise shallow for short periods in 70°F water, but rarely in daytime.
