Last weekend the Clackamas Fly Fishers had a fish-a-long at the Rocky ridge Ranch Lakes. The fishing and comradery were great but due to blustery cold weather Saturday and perhaps the effect of a full moon the catching was just fair.

Lane did well on the Middle Lake at o-dark-thirty casting a big seal bugger, the highlight landing a trout approaching 10lbs. Unfortunately the cameraman was still enjoying morning coffee so there are no photos.

Once it got fully light out the bite dropped off sharply. However, Trout looked to be actively sipping Chironomids and we were able to do a stomach sampling from one trout and tie some flies to “match the hatch.” This usually produces excellent results but this time it failed miserably. That’s fishing! We did land more trout casting and stripping Woolly Buggers but the wind intensified as evening approached and so cocktail hour came early.

Tim returned from the fishing the Lower Lake with an excellent report, so we planned to fish the Lower Lake the next day (Sunday).

Sunday dawned clear and it seemed like a good idea to chase “the big ones” of the Middle Lake at first light. The action was consistent until the sun hit the water, then the bite stopped. One big trout was hooked that managed to break off a 10lb tippet and a couple other nice trout were brought to hand and released.

After a leisurely breakfast we took our float tubes to the lower lake and enjoyed several hours of fast action on 13” to 16” trout with a few larger ones hooked as well.

Below are some pictures from the weekend: enjoying cabin time, trout rising at sunset, Ken fighting a big trout, stomach sampling of Chironomids, early morning moon over the Middle Lake, a fat rainbow just before release and a before and after shot of Tim’s hot fly pattern.