Caught 10 and kept 8 in the 13 - 16 in range. Lost a couple. Fished from 3pm - 5pm under mostly clear skies with the girlfriend and 2 dogs. Trolled flies again tipped with rainbow power eggs. Working colors were fluorescent orange and a rust shade of orange. 1 - 2 small red beads between fly head and small wiggle fin disk. 3 ft leader to 1/2 to 3/4 oz slip weight. Trolled at 1.5 to 1.7 mph making a fair amount of subtle turns to attract bites. I've trolled with just about every genre of lure and bait for rainbow trout in small lakes and this setup has become my favorite lately. No dodgers or gear. Longer fight times than still fishing, casting or jigging. 100% hooked in lip/mouth making catch and release or retrieval quick and easy. They also tend to hit hard, often surfacing and flying out of the water on the initial hit. For shallow lakes like Nahwatzel my money take back length is 77ft (my baseball number :-) In deeper lakes we will set back 100 or 150 ft if they seem spooky. We had 2 hits while setting back at 35-45 ft so they weren't too spooky yesterday. I know there are tons of effective ways to catch stocked rainbow trout, just thought I'd share what has been killer for me all year! I think I might be a bit ADD too so I like to move around the lake.

Fish all fought well and looked healthy with the exception of 1. Looked plump and felt bloated. When cleaned the entire GI tract was jammed up with small snails. I'm pretty sure it had a bowel obstruction! Had to be about 50 of these things in there. Muscle atrophy with flesh appearing pale to light green and soft. Didn't appear suitible for consumption and I'm assuming the fish was becoming septic from feces retention. Crazy! All others cleaned nicely and were fileted and put straight into brine.

Hope you guys can sneak out on some of these gorgeous fall days. We were treated to a show of fighter jets making a training run overhead, calm winds, low volume of boats, eagles, larger fish...fall trout fishing can be pretty cool!

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