We put together a last minute trip to fish with Jeff Laybourne of Superfly Flies. The weather was ice cold but otherwise not so bad. It helped that Jeff's boat has a nice heated cabin.

Garfield Bay was our point of departure this time around. The launch had some ice on it, but it wasn't enough to cause us trouble and we were on our way around 7am. We trolled a mixture of flies, plugs, and apex lures in varying colors. 5 rods on each planer board and another 4 running about 85' deep on the downriggers, for a total of 14!

Jeff headed out deep and we started around 400' and headed southwest from the bay and were soon in about 1200 feet of water. Early on in the day we hooked up with a beautiful cutthroat that weighed a few pounds. After that it was all quiet as we looped around the barge and headed back towards Garfield Bay. Somewhere mid-day we hooked up with our first Rainbow, and it was a beauty. We're figuring it was in the 8 to 10lb range. It nailed one of the dark plugs, snapped the 12lb line Jeff likes to use, and amazingly latched onto one of the surface flies! I had to switch rods to get it to the boat, but as the picture shows, we managed to get it aboard.

We picked up another small rainbow while bringing the gear in but like the others, we released it unharmed.

If you're looking for gear that works well, head to Jeff's shop and browse the selection in person, or pick something up online.

Superfly Tackle
31827 Hwy 200
Kootenai ID 83840

https://superflyflies.com/

---