Hi Fellow Fisherman,
With fishing season just a few days off I went to Eloika Lake, again, in early evening. This time out I brought my new fish finder, Eagle Tri-finder 2. Now this unit works great in the shallow lakes. It has a tri beam sonar which utilizes a 150^ range, sweet! I purchased the Eagle on sale for $179.99 at the local White Elephant Store.
I love to fly fish and like to tie my own flies. With the price of gas going sky high, purchasing new hackle was just out of my reach until I meet, Stan and Vella Carlberg, owner, of CR Birds. CR Birds raises Hackle, Exotic Pheasants and sells his own hand tied Furled Leaders, check out his new web site crbirds.com. I wanted a black hen for my Woolly Bugger pattern so I purchased the full skin for ONLY $17.00+ tax. Stan just happens to live a few miles from me so I decided to meet him over the previous weekend. Stan is a down to earth person and we hit it off. We decided to go fly fishing the following Monday. I tied up a few Woolly Buggers Sunday night and we meet at the lake on Monday. We both happen to have Dan Croft fly rod blanks 5-6 wt 9’6” which we both finished ourselves, small world.
I know Eloika Lake fairly well but never seen the bottom of this lake. In 2 words I will describe the bottom, MUDDY and WEEDS. Anyway, we went up to the north east end where the water depth was about 14’ but we were within 150’ of the shoreline. We both noticed larger fish laying in the deep water and smaller fish in about 5-7’. We were hoping the larger fish were German browns and the others were Perch. Sure enough we were right. Using the fly rod with sinking line and the Woolly Bugger I hooked up my first cast, German Brown 11.5”. We both caught, I lost count, perch ranging from 3” to 10” and we ended up with 8 browns from 10” to 15”. Stan and I had a blast.
Finally, this lake was good to me. Maybe it was the Mature Black hen feathers I used in tying the Woolly Bugger; they replace the marabou called for in the pattern.
We also went to the farthest north end by the double wide trailer on the hill. There we saw 3 otter fishing for perch. I always carry my camera and I was able to get a few photos of them and one with an otter eating a perch. They were not to keen on us intruding on there part of the lake. Photos were taken from quite a distance but if you look hard you can make them out in the bush.
I’m looking forward to fishing Eloika Lake in the near future.

We both practiced catch and release.
Happy Fishing
BuckTailBob

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