Went For A Quicky :)

Finished work today and jetted home. It was 21c when I left and such a nice day I figured it was time to get the boat on the water, even if just for a couple hours. After ensuring I had everything I needed (or so I thought), I hooked up the boat and away I went. I pulled into the parking lot and started preparing the boat for launching when I realized, I forgot the depth finder. Oh well, I know Muir Lake pretty well and I fished for years at that lake without a finder so I wasn't going to let that stop me.

I steered the boat to the south end of the lake taking notice of the plentiful amount of chironomids on the surface of the water and anchored down in about 14ft of water after seeing some trout activity in the area. I noticed all different sizes of chironomid pupa and adults including some bombers so I set-up my rod using my usual set-up when I'm seeing chironomid activity or when I'm not sure what the trout are feeding on. This static presentation setup includes a long tapered leader, an indicator and either two chironomids or a leech patter and chironomid combo. I decided my first fly would be small olive leech pattern and the point fly, my Big Ass Bloodworm patter.  It was 6:30 PM before I made my first cast. As usual, I set my point fly one foot off the bottom and after about 4 casts, I'll pull my rig up and secure the indictor one foot closer to the flies. The wind was whipping up pretty good and probably offered a little to much action on the flies so using the boat as a wind break, I kept my presentation only about 10-15ft from the boat. It was about 30 minutes in when I got the take. It was aggressive

and the indicator went down with purpose.

She took the bloodworm pattern and as I was fighting her and trying to get her on my reel, I looked down in the boat and realized, I forgot my net. It all worked out however, I was careful to remove the hook after hand landing her. I picked it up for this quick photo and released her back to her lair. If you're not familiar with Muir Lake, the regulation stipulates, you may keep one trout per day over 20 inches, all trout sizes 20 inches and under must be released back into the lake. In all honesty, from my experience fishing local pothole lakes for the last 42 years, anything over 14" tastes muddy anyway so you may as well release them, even on the lakes where you can keep 5.

I headed over to the north side and fished by the dock until 8:30 PM. I don't have to check the stocking report to tell you Muir has already been recently stocked. I caught a bunch of them and they look to be about 5 or 6 six inches. Fun couple hours anyway, nice to get the boat wet.