"How To Find Fish on Stillwaters"
by Zack Thurman

Living in the West, we are fortunate to have many good stillwater fisheries that hold large trout. Many anglers though shy away from them because of the difficulty to find the trout that reside in them. Fishing Stillwaters has always been an interest of mine, as I fish around the West Coast pursuing the benefits of large trout that reside in our lakes. Every year, I venture out and pursue new lakes. When I come to a new lake there is always that mystery to unravel where the fish are going to be or how deep in the water column they may be. This is the most challenging part to fishing lakes and is why I believe people balk at the thought of fishing them. They are not as easy to read as moving water.

The question that I get asked all the time is, "how do you know where to find the fish without using the advantage of a fish finder? What should I do to find the fish effectively?". When I first get to a lake, whether I am in my boat, pontoon, or float tube, the first the thing I try to look for is some sort of structure to attract the trout. I look for weed beds, springs, inlets, rock ledges, or points. These obstructions all attract trout for different reasons but still don't give you a guarantee that you can find them right away. Obviously if you can visually see trout in the water or have trout feeding on the surface you know where to fish, but what do you do when you can’t see them? Thus, the difficulty, you have to start searching the water columns.

The best thing to do is have a line (preferably sinking) that you can count down to find what depth the fish are holding. For me the line I use in most of my lake situations is an Intermediate sinking line, and the other being a Type II sinking line. With these lines I am casting and retrieving my flies and not using indicators or trolling. Intermediates fish best from 1 to 8 feet, Type II’s 8-15 feet. But why not fish deeper than 15 ft? The reason is that the majority of a trout’s feeding activity on lakes is in shallow water, because the majority of the food is located there. If they are deeper than 15 ft, I have found that they are usually sulking down and not eating from factors like better water temps, full moons, cold fronts, drop of barometer, fishing pressure, etc.

Having the right line is the key to finding fish and staying in the depth the fish are feeding the longest. The reason I believe an Intermediate line is the best choice, is that it sinks slower than any other line, which keeps you in the zone that the fish are for the longest period of time. This allows you to present your flies to more fish. Intermediate lines sink roughly about 1.5" per second and roughly 1' in ten seconds. With this you can use a count down system to find the depth the fish are holding. With no fish showing I will cast out and count to 10 (1 ft) and start retrieving my flies back in, usually slowly, to try and find the fish. If that doesn’t work I will then cast out and count to maybe 15 seconds or 20 seconds (2 to 3 ft) before starting my retrieve, and will keep increasing the count until I find where the fish are located. I will do this to about 8 feet deep with an Intermediate and if I am not getting any bites I will then go to a Type II. Many times this has increased my numbers of fish in a day significantly. If I just did the same thing over and over, maybe change a fly or two, but not vary the depths my results would have been different. In all the situations that I have encountered the sink rate of the line and searching the water column is far more important than fly pattern.

Another factor that people also overlook is that a line keeps sinking when you are retrieving your flies back in. This means that even though you may have started your retrieve at 1' your fly will sink down past that mark several feet, especially if you make a long cast. What I will do sometimes is keep counting, (in my head), as I retrieve my flies back, so I know exactly what depth the fish are at. If I was at about 50 seconds, when a fish hits, then that fish was about five feet down. This may seem like a lot of work, but if your goal is to catch more and bigger fish, this method has put my numbers far above many of those that I have fish with in the same boat, because I knew exactly what depth fish are located while they were wasting lots of time, casts, and good presentations because they weren’t getting their flies to the fish.

There is the misperception that fly pattern is the most important thing to overcome while fishing a lake. I think this comes from many people learning to fly-fish on moving water and trying to match the hatch that they may see. This isn’t the case on lakes unless you are fishing dries, which is fun but not the best way to catch more and bigger fish. There are flies though that fish a little more consistent at certain depths or situations. When fishing lakes you always want to have all of the food sources covered with your flies, which are usually leeches, baitfish, damsels, dragons, callibaetis, caddis, or midges. This is pretty much the same for all lakes with maybe an exception here or there. Also, trout feed opportunistically on lakes and a lot of times you can use flies that aren’t imitating what is hatching and still catch lots of fish. When fishing, know what depths the different food sources are usually found. Leeches or dragons usually fish better deeper. With damsels, callibaetis, caddis, and baitfish better fished in shallower waters. So, match your patterns to your depths and lines accordingly, but don’t forget that you will find situations when you can catch fish at different depths with any fly.

Remember, everyday on the water is different. Next time you find yourself on a lake and can't see trout, try this countdown method to search and probe different depths until you find fish. Hopefully this will help you become more successful finding fish on lakes, as it has for me.