Lake: Green (King)
Date: 4/16
Time: 2PM to 4:30PM
Temp: 44-46 f.
Wind: variable, but mostly S-SW 05 to 40MPH
Weather: A typical April day – sunbreaks with intermittent and dominant serious squalls accompanied by drop in temperature and barometer, heavy rain, hail, thunder and extremely high winds. (yeah…one of those…)

It was a dark and stormy night… Okay, well it was definitely a stormy day. I was throwing about the only lure I ever use in Green Lake: a 3/16 oz. hammered brass w/orange fire stripe Luhr Jensen Krocodile from the crew dock at the south end of the lake. Not a hint of a strike for quite some time as I watched some cormorants about 100 yards out fishing heavily on what I presume were recently planted catchable size rainbows.

I watched a cormorant go under and then surface only about 40 yards out. Realizing that he had probably chased a school in toward me, I shot a quick cast out toward where I presumed the school would have been. I must have cranked the handle about 8 revolutions when WHAM! something hit my Kroc like a ton of bricks. A 10” rainbow, fat and feisty shot out and did a quick a tail walk before diving in an ill-fated attempt to shake me loose.

About 20 minutes later a close to identical situation occurred with a cormorant and I cast and again hooked into another10 incher. This time, while playing it in I felt a hard tug and up comes the cormorant with the fish’s tail in his mouth. He let go and I played in the injured fish.

The scene replayed itself yet again about 15 minutes later and I took a third fish. Each one after a cormorant chased them in to me.

When fishing Green Lake in April and May I generally look for the schools of trout that school and top feed in large circles. One minute they’re there, the next minute they’re gone. Right now it’s too early for much top feeding so it’s a real hit or miss deal.

Just keep throwing that hardware – these Green Lake fish are sweet and tasty!

Note: Experienced fly fisherman should be able to hook and release many fish this time of year on a variety

GEAR USED: A generic 7’ spin rod with a (Swedish made, circa 1973) Zebco Cardinal 3 with 4# DuPont Stren (clear/blue) and a Luhr Jensen 3/16 oz. hammered brass w/orange fire stripe Krocodile with a size 1 Gamakatsu Siwash hook w/barb.

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